With A Black Nightingale
by Tyanilth
Summary: At a point when the Thieves Guild in Skyrim is at its lowest ebb in many years, a Redguard woman recruit may be the last best hope, or the warning of doom descending. Only Nocturnal knows - and she's not telling.  Brynjolf x Redguard OC player character
1. Chapter 1

**With A Black Nightingale**

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><p>This had two inspirations - one was the fascinating series of Thieves Guild quests in Skyrim which I ran through with a Redguard stealth archer. The other was the Bob Dylan song Changing of the Guard which had so many parallels in the quests that I started to wonder whether the dev who wrote that quest line was a Dylan fan too. Three verses are quoted below but the rest of the song is worth reading - or indeed listening to - in its own right.<p>

_**"Fortune calls.**_

_**I stepped forth from the shadows, to the marketplace,**_

_**Merchants and thieves, hungry for power, my last deal gone down.**_

_**She's smelling sweet like the meadows where she was born,**_

_**On midsummer's eve, near the tower.**_

_**The cold-blooded moon.**_

_**The captain waits above the celebration**_

_**Sending his thoughts to a beloved maid**_

_**Whose ebony face is beyond communication.**_

_**The captain is down but still believing that his love will be repaid.**_

_**They shaved her head.**_

_**She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo.**_

_**A messenger arrived with a black nightingale.**_

_**I seen her on the stairs and I couldn't help but follow,**_

_**Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil."**_

_**"Changing of the Guard - Bob Dylan"**_

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><p>"So you're bringing in yet another stray, Bryn?" Vex was leaning against the wall of the Flagon, paring her nails with a stiletto. Her eyes were amused. "I know we're short of recruits these days, but surely this is scraping the bottom of the barrel. A Redguard doesn't exactly blend in round here, you know. She'd better be something special."<p>

The big Nord chuckled into his mead. "Aye, lass. She is that."

There was a snort from Delvin. "Brynjolf's fallen for a pretty face again."

Brynjolf refused to be ruffled. "Listen, the lass took a ring and planted it on that piece of crap Brand-Shei - and not only did no-one in the market see her do it, I didn't see her do it either. And I was watching her. So instead of asking awkward questions tonight, that Dark Elf troublemaker is cooling his heels in Riften Jail and trying to convince people he was framed. Don't you think that made her worth a look? And no - the lass is not pretty. Even with the blonde hair."

Delvin laughed. "A blonde Redguard? Now we know she won't blend in. I take it her mother liked a bit of Northern seasoning to her Southern stew?"

Brynjolf yawned. "Del, can you ever manage three sentences without being offensive? Divines only know what her parents were, it's none of our concern. And the lass is quick with her daggers as well as a bow, so I'd resist the temptation to try for a quick tumble there if I were you."

Delvin snorted and openly scratched his crotch. "Won't be trying for a tumble anywhere till I see the apothecary. The last whore had lice. Been scratching myself raw for three days."

Vex looked revolted. "Too much information. Delvin, you're disgusting."

"Only just worked that out, have you?" The bald man laughed openly at her and walked back to the bar.

Brynjolf looked towards the door that led to the Ratway. "Anyway, if she was going to show, she would have done it by now. Either she's cried off, or she fell foul of someone out there. Pity."

"My apologies. I would have been half an hour earlier if I hadn't met with some company."

The three thieves spun round. The Redguard girl was walking silently out of the back passageway that led to the Ratway Vaults...no, girl was the wrong word. Vex guessed her as a woman in her mid twenties, and no, she wouldn't have been called pretty by anyone. Honey blonde hair which would probably have been in tight frizzy curls if it hadn't been braided tight to her head, dark copper skin that was fairer than most Redguards but still many shades darker than the hair. Broad cheekbones, a snub nose and a wide, generous mouth that looked like it would smile easily. Healing burn scars all down the right side of the face, trailing down the neck and disappearing under the...Stormcloak cuirass she wore?

"You're a Stormcloak, lass?" Brynjolf seemed truly surprised.

"No. But my first experience in Skyrim was riding to my execution in a cart, bound and gagged, and sitting beside Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak, after the Imperials picked me up on the docks and didn't want to listen to explanations about where I'd come from. When a dragon disrupted the executions, I sought out the Jarl and offered him my services. Told him he at least knew why I hated the Empire. He laughed. But he wouldn't take me on. Gave me the cuirass and told me to come back when I had some muscles on my sword arm."

"The man's a fool then, lass. You may not be a brawny Nord berserker, but I saw the archer's callouses on your fingers. And the daggers you carry. Too many Nords think anything other than a battle axe is useless."

She nodded, and sat down on a stool by the bar. "Your guard dogs in the tunnel thought that too. I assumed you didn't want either man killed, but I left them a few good scars to remember me by."

Vex raised an eyebrow. "You bested both of them?"

"Well, one of them thought I was a different sort of woman. While he was trying to catch a feel, I kicked him in the balls and then pinned his friend to a wall with his own dagger while the first one was writhing on the floor. I wasn't going to waste an arrow on him...for all I knew, you might have had a need for the man later."

From anyone else this might have sounded like bravado, but it was delivered in flat tones that came across purely as a statement of fact. The Hammerfel accent was not as noticible as it might be, only a broadening of some vowels gave away that she was not brought up in Skyrim. Brynjolf cast a glance at Delvin who grinned. "Message understood, Bryn, I'll keep my hands to myself. Welcome, Redguard. Why do you have the blonde hair anyway?"

Brynjolf sighed. "Lass, this is Delvin. Third in command round here, joint with Vex. Foul sense of humour, fouler mouth. Ignore him. Most of us round here do."

The woman seemed amused. "It's a fair question. My mother was Redguard, my father was Nord. I never knew my father. Mother just said that things happen in war. Been answering the question all my life." She tweaked a loose strand of her wiry hair. "Tried dying it a few times but it usually looks worse when I do."

Vex laughed. "Do you have a name?"

"Philomena. Most people call me Mena"

"Just Mena?"

"I have no last name. Not until I earn one for myself."

That silenced all three of the thieves. Brynjolf took charge. "Well then lass, welcome to the Thieves Guild. We'll put you up with the other recruits for now..."

"Such as they are," Vex said. "We aren't exactly bursting at the seams these days."

"Aye, lass, our numbers are down at present. We'll find you something to wear that's a little less obvious than that Stormcloak garb, there's towns in Skyrim where you wouldn't want to walk through the gate wearing that. There's a few small jobs round here that you can do for us to earn your keep. I take it you're short of coin or you wouldn't have come here anyway."

Mena nodded. "I've a few septims, but it wouldn't have carried me further than a bed for a week in a dosshouse somewhere. And despite what you said to me in the marketplace, I've done no thievery in Skyrim. Yet. Wanted to see whose toes I'd be treading on first."

"Sensible lass. But you showed me that you were no novice in the market."

She grinned, a feral expression on her otherwise calm face, and turned the scarred side of her face to the light, laying a finger on her cheekbone. "I think you can say I'm no novice, yes."

The other three peered in the dim light and suddenly Brynjolf made a startled noise. "I see. Well, lass, Vex will find you a bed, take food from any of the shelves in the Cistern if you're hungry. I'll talk to you in the morning."

As the two women left, Delvin turned to Brynjolf. "I saw the brand by her eye ...what was it? That's no penal brand I know of."

Brynjolf was looking thoughtful. "No, that's no penal brand. That's the Black Talon. She's survived the Thieves Guild training in Hegathe and been marked for advancement. They give that brand to maybe one recruit in a year, if that. Most of them end up as Masters. So what is a Hammerfel Talon doing in Skyrim in the first place?"

"You could just ask her, you know."

"And you think the lass would tell me?"

"All right, maybe you have a point."


	2. Chapter 2

"That girl is going to be trouble." Delvin stared morosely into his half empty cup of mead.

"What makes you say that?" Brynjolf said. He carried another jug over to the table.

Vex as usual had refused to join them and was leaning on a wall, close enough to make it obvious that she was listening in to the conversation. Subtlety was not a tool that Vex used often. When the woman was subtle, it was time to start worrying. But she seemed interested. "I would have said the girl hasn't put a foot wrong so far. Other than the nightmares."

"All right, lets start there then. The nightmares." Delvin took a gulp from his replenished cup.

Brynjolf raised an eyebrow. "We all have nightmares now and again."

"Yes, but this isn't now and again, boss. Night after night, every night. She's waking half the Cistern each time and now some of the younger ones are getting upset by it."

"So shift her. No reason she couldn't sleep in here near the Flagon instead, give her a bed in one of the alcoves. Vex, you've spoken to the lass more than I have, does she know what the nightmares are about?"

"She claims not." Vex's face was unusually serious. "But I've seen her at night, sitting bolt upright in her bed, screaming. Eyes wide open and yet she's clearly still fast asleep. If you wake her she just stares at you in total bewilderment."

Brynjolf swirled the mead in his cup. "What else is worrying you, Delvin?"

"Well, you sent her to me to assess her skills, boss. And those are worrying me too."

"How so?"

"They aren't balanced."

"Well, let's take this one step at a time, Del. Start with the good news. What's she best at?"

"Not hard to answer that, boss. As an archer, she's as good as I've ever seen, both longbow and crossbow. Took her out poaching and she can put an arrow through a deer's eye at a hundred paces. Stealth skills to match me, there's not much I could teach her there. But in close quarters combat she's poor. Most of the recruits could beat her hand to hand with a sword and shield, and with any two handed weapon she's worse."

"What about the non combat skills?"

"They're what worry me even more. Her lock picking's fair to average - not as good as I'd expect from someone who's gone through the training that she has. Her pickpocketing is decent but as a shill she's far better - she can place something in someone's pocket and nobody I've tested her on can spot her. If she's stealing something from a pocket, she'll be spotted maybe one time in ten. Good enough for a recruit, not good enough for someone who's already completed recruit training elsewhere."

Vex was nodding as she claimed the mead jug. "That fits with what I've seen of her. Don't send her out to try card sharping, the gamblers round here will eat her for breakfast. She's useless as a forger, I could do better with a child's crayons. Old Phylbert says she's a good alchemist, but keep her working on poisons only, her healing potions apparently are lousy."

"Not going to ask her for a cure for your little problem then, Del?" Brynjolf teased

"You must be joking, boss. Given what Phylbert said I'd apply one of her ointments and my dick would fall off."

"Lowering the tone again, Delvin?"

"Vex, that's why you love me."

Vex wrinkled her nose and turned to Brynjolf. "You sent her out on a few little jobs, didn't you? How did those go?"

The big Nord tilted his chair back. "Well, that's another story. I thought for a while about what to send her out to do. Now as you know we have had problems with getting debts paid around here..."

"Understatement of the year, boss. These days if anyone pays up at all, it's a surprise."

"I hear you, Del. Now I picked her out three people to go and get the money from. Keerava, that Argonian bartender at the Bee and Barb. Bersi Honey-Hand at the Pawned Prawn. Oh, and Haelga from the bunkhouse, knew she wouldn't manage that one but it wouldn't hurt to remind the woman we aren't just writing the debt off."

"Fair enough, boss. She might manage the lizard, but I doubt she'd get Bersi to pay up, given how many people have tried and failed. So, when's she coming back?"

Brynjolf refilled all their cups. "Well, that's where this story gets interesting. I gave her the jobs first thing this morning and told her I expected her back by nightfall. She nodded, asked me a few questions and then vanished. You and Vex went out an hour later, I was looking forward to a quiet morning with no interruptions in the market..."

Delvin was grinning. "You never get a morning with no interruptions there, boss. You're either getting complaints off the last person who bought something, dealing with a guard who hasn't been paid off, or picking up another stray."

"True. But even I wasn't expecting what happened. Before midday, all three of those people had found me in the market. They gave profuse apologies for the debt having slipped their minds, assured me that it wouldn't happen again, and paid up. In full."

Delvin's jaw had dropped. "Now you're pulling my leg."

"Not a word of a lie. Every penny paid. Haelva was white and shaking, and that was a sight to behold in itself. If lizards could cry, Keerava would have been in floods of tears. Bersi just threw the money at me and almost ran away."

"That worries me." Vex was tossing her dagger idly in her hand. "Mena clearly threatened them to get the money - but with what?"

"Well, I gave the lass a few ideas, but nothing that should have provoked that sort of reaction. I'd have understood if they paid up and were angry. I can't understand why they all should be afraid - and that's the only word I can use. All three were frightened. Very frightened."

Vex looked round the room. "Has she come back yet?"

Brynjolf nodded. "She came back roughly an hour ago, just before lunch."

"Did you ask her?"

"Of course I asked her. She looked me in the eye and lied. Told me she'd just politely reminded them of the debts and they were only too happy to deal with the problem."

Delvin stared morosely at the table. "I told you that girl was going to be trouble."

Vex still seemed curious. "Bryn, has it crossed your mind that she might be a mage? That she used some sort of charm spell to get the money?"

"Of course it crossed my mind, lass. But it doesn't fit. If she'd charmed them, they would have wandered in with big beaming smiles to pay up, not terrified and crying. I don't know of any spell or potion that can terrify someone into doing anything except running away."

Delvin looked up. "It goes back to what I said at the start, boss. About the training. It's too one sided. That isn't a thief's set of skills, it's an assassin's set of skills."

"She isn't Dark Brotherhood, Del, get that out of your head. I talked to them when she came in, just in case. They say she isn't one of theirs, and they have ways of knowing. And the Brotherhood wouldn't forge a Thieves Guild facial brand, they aren't fools. Our policy of mutual non-interference has served us both well, why would they cause trouble now?"

"So, what's your explanation, boss?"

"Well, we know Hegathe marked the lass for advancement. It crossed my mind that they had planned to use her as an enforcer of some kind. We don't get the Brotherhood involved with our in-house problems, so the Guildmaster in Hegathe may have seen a value in keeping someone like her as a weapon to his hand. If we'd had her around when Karliah murdered Gallus then Mercer might have thought about something very similar."

"You're not wrong there, boss." Delvin ran a hand over his scalp. "What will you do with her now?"

"Give her a couple of different types of jobs. Jobs that use those stealth skills and possibly that archery. She's still a recruit as far as I'm concerned, we can work on her weaker skills, but I'd rather not have her working in Riften itself for a while. Let's allow her off the leash for a little outside the city walls."

"What were you thinking of giving her?"

"Well, I'll talk it over with Mercer. But I was thinking it's time to do something about the Goldenglow Estate before Maven ends up on our backs about it again."

"That's not a job for a recruit." Vex was shaking her head.

"And as we've all said, this lass is not exactly an ordinary recruit."

"Also true. All right, see what Mercer says."

Brynjolf stood up. "I'll look in on the lass before I go talk to Mercer."

Mena was in the room just before the Cistern door. Brynjolf could see from the doorway that she was working on one of the locks they kept for picking practice and not having a good time with it, the broken picks in a pile beside her on the table told their own story. As he watched her another pick broke in her hand and she swore fluently in her own language.

"You're keeping your wrists too stiff, lass."

"I know." She didn't seem surprised at his presence.

He walked over and pulled up a chair beside her. "You need to treat a lock like your lover, lass. You don't force, you caress." He took the pick and probe from her hands and slid them into the keyhole. "Leave your wrists soft, and stroke those tumblers as gently as you can, change the angle just a little each time. Never try to hurry it." The lock turned under his gentle fingers and he opened the box lid. "See?"

She nodded. "I know the theory. Just not had much practice."

There was something in her words that suggested to him that she wasn't just talking about the lock, but he let it pass. "Patience is your friend, lass. Patience, and a good pair of gloves." He took a pair of fine black leather gloves out of his pocket. "Try these. They were mine, many years ago, but my hands are too large for them now."

She took them from him. "Thank you." She was looking down at her hands and his eyes followed hers, her sleeves were drawn back above her wrists and he could see other scars there, old and faded but visible, crossing the inside of both wrists. She realised the direction of his gaze and tugged the sleeves down. "Was there something else you wanted, sir?"

"You don't call me sir, lass, nobody here does. Just Brynjolf, or Bryn if you prefer. And no, there's nothing else except to tell you to stay in the Flagon or the Cistern this afternoon, don't go out. Mercer is probably going to want to talk to you later, and he's another one who isn't as patient as he might be."

She nodded and turned back to the lock. "I'll be here."

As he left her he glanced back over his shoulder. She was patiently probing the lock again. Still without the wrists as soft as she needed, but slower, and a lot more gently. He shook his head once, unseen, then left her.


	3. Chapter 3

Brynjolf knew that Mercer wasn't going to like it.

And Mercer didn't like it. Mercer didn't like anything these days, the sour old bastard. There had been a time when he had been far more easy to deal with although he had never been a bundle of laughs at the best of times. But there had been times when he would join the others in the Flagon for a cup of mead and occasionally drop a sarcastic joke into the conversation. Now he kept himself to himself, sat in the Guildmaster's corner of the Cistern and drank that foul spirit that the Argonians brought in from the Black Marsh and read reports. He was still sarcastic, but he almost never joked. And why any good Nord would want to drink that muck was beyond Brynjolf, he had always assumed that the lizards had no sense of taste in the first place. He presumed Mercer found it the simplest and fastest way to go from sober to paralytic without any fuss in the middle.

But apparently Mercer really, really didn't like the idea of sending a recruit into the Goldenglow Estate. Not because he ever had any feelings for the recruits, promotion in the Guild had always to some degree been a case of "dead men's shoes" - the incompetents got caught and either jailed or hanged, the competent ones moved up a rank. But Mercer had stated, not without some justification, that handing a job like this over to a recruit after Vex had failed on it so catastrophically was going from the sublime to the ridiculous. And the Guild couldn't afford to have any more public foul ups, not after everything else that had been going on.

Brynjolf supposed that was true enough, but that wasn't really the problem. After Gallus was murdered, Mercer had held the guild together. He'd been the obvious candidate really - Brynjolf knew himself to be a good second in command but would never have wanted the headaches of the leader's position. Mercer was a good thief, a strong leader, and if he cracked a few heads to get the job done he wasn't the first or the last leader of the Thieves Guild to have to do that. But there was no doubt at all that their run of bad luck had started with that murder, and if Mercer had a plan up his sleeve to improve things, Brynjolf was yet to see any evidence of it. Instead the man remained obsessed with tracking down Karliah, and while Brynjolf would like to see that murdering Dark Elf dead at his feet just as much as anyone else in the Guild, there were other things going on that needed attention. And they were mostly being ignored.

But at least Mercer had agreed to let the girl try, and that was something. He'd given Mena a very lackluster welcome to the Guild which the girl had acknowledged with her usual impassivity, told her to pick up a set of leathers from Tonilia, gave her a half hearted version of the "don't bloody well cock this up" lecture and then walked off. It had been left to Brynjolf and Vex to brief Mena further, and Vex hadn't been much help - the wounds from the failed job had healed, but the wounds to the woman's injured pride were going to take far, far longer. Mercer had wanted Vex to go as second to Mena for this job, and Brynjolf had flatly refused to even ask the woman. He'd told Mercer not to add insult to injury and Mercer had grumply given in, stipulating that in that case Brynjolf could second the Redguard himself since he had such a talent for babysitting. Brynjolf had let it go. Given what Mercer could be like, it could all have been a lot worse.

Vex had even snapped at Mena at one point. She'd told the girl that she, Vex, was the best infiltrator the Guild had ever had and if Mena had had any idea of stepping into that role then she had another think coming. Mena had politely denied any such plan and Vex had even seemed a little ashamed of herself after the outburst. She had at least calmed down enough to draw a sketch map of the estate and mark on it the sewer outfalls that fed into the lake which were clearly the most promising route of approach. If it hadn't been for Maven Black-Briar, Brynjolf would cheerfully have told Mena to torch the whole place, after all nothing would have demonstrated better to Riften that the Thieves Guild was back in business again, a good column of smoke tends to draw people's attention.

When he had said this, Mena's immediate response had been "So then, why don't we just torch the place?"

"Because Maven Black-Briar would nail our hides up on the Riften gate, lass."

Mena looked thoughtful. "And who is Maven Black-Briar?"

"Not someone you can stick a dagger in. Trust me on this. The Black-Briars control most of what happens in Riften, and the bits they don't already control, they soon will. Maven is the matriarch of the clan, and as well as her links to us she also has links to the Dark Brotherhood and the Thalmor. And if you hear any rumours that she's got the Jarl in her back pocket, believe them. She's one of our best customers, she's someone that you don't want to upset, and if she asks us to jump, we ask how high. That's all you need to know."

"There was an Imperial man in Riften when I first arrived here who mentioned something about the Black-Briars too. He was the one who pointed me towards you in the first place."

"That would be Maul, lass. He's brother to Dirge here. Used to run with us and then started working for the Black-Briars direct."

"And he isn't the only one to do that recently," Vex added.

"Yes, he said that the Guild was going through something of a rough patch?" Mena was watching Brynjolf closely.

"Lass, we've always had rough patches. They go with the game. But I'll admit this one has gone on for longer than usual - Delvin reckons we've been cursed and frankly there are times when I could almost believe him. But he's a Breton and they're always superstitious."

Vex snorted. "Doesn't mean he's wrong."

"Now don't you start, Vex."

Mena changed the subject. "I got the leather armour from Tonilia - how do you treat the leather for that? I've never seen anything like it - it's butter soft but it will turn an iron blade."

Brynjolf smiled. "Ah, that's our secret. You're not the first to ask, and you won't get an answer either. Even I don't know the whole process used - but there's both alchemy and magic involved and several people outside the Guild have tried to steal pieces and duplicate it. They've failed. The leather has to be soaked for several days in the alchemy vats before the magic is applied, and then soaked again. When you wear it you'll find it'll turn water as well, you can swim a lake in it and come out as dry as you went in."

"As you'll find out when you get into Goldenglow," Vex added. "I hope you're a strong swimmer."

"Good enough to get across a lake. Unless there's a few hidden surprises in the lake that you aren't telling me about."

"No lass. Water, weed, a few fish. That little bastard Aringoth has filled the place with mercenaries, but so far hasn't thought of freshwater slaughterfish to keep out the unwanted visitors."

Vex laughed bitterly. "Just about the only thing he hasn't thought of - the sewers are full of traps, and a fair few skeevers. I've marked you the traps I spotted, but there's plenty more in there."

"Thanks." Mena studied the map. "What's a skeever? We don't have them in Hammerfel."

"A skeever," Vex informed her, "is a rat like creature that's roughly the size of a fox. All of them are vicious, most carry disease. Take my advice, have a tinderbox with you, and if you get bitten, heat a dagger blade and burn out the bite wound. Hurts like hell, but better than the alternatives."

"So what's the problem with the Goldenglow estate that's got your client so angry?" said Mena, looking curiously at Brynjolf.

"Well, lass, the estate is owned by a Bosmer called Aringoth who used to supply honey to Maven Black-Briar for her meadery and pay a cut to the Thieves Guild like a good little boy in exchange for a peaceful life and a lot of problems happening to other people rather than to him. Then he got greedy, stopped paying his Guild contributions and started selling his honey elsewhere. When Vex was sent to show him the error of his ways she and Delvin discovered he'd stationed eight mercenaries around the place, and she was lucky to get out alive. Del carried her most of the way back here. What I've wanted all along is to find out just why the gutless little rat grew a set of balls after all these years. But what Maven wants is the honey to be travelling to her meadery and not to her competitors, and she doesn't care very much how we do it as long as it's done. So keep the elf alive if you can, because both Maven and I want answers. But if an accident happens to him ...well, too bad. Turn over the safe anyway while you're there and see if you can find anything that explains what's been going on. And burn three of the hives. Just three. Certainly not the whole lot and certainly not the house. Maven wants the honey, she doesn't want to have to import it from elsewhere because a Thieves Guild operative got over excited and torched the place. Imported honey is expensive and Maven will not be a happy little bunny if that happens. And an unhappy Maven tends to be bad news for anyone in a ten mile radius. Clear?"

"Clear."

"No more questions?"

"No. I know what I'm doing."

"Very well, lass. Meet me by the city gate in three hours."

Roughly four hours later the two thieves were crouched on the edge of the lake looking out over the water. Dusk had coloured the water every shade of blue and purple and dragonflies darted here and there above the surface. Brynjolf passed Mena a tub of grey-green greasy paste. "This is the same stuff that Del uses for poaching but without the smell. It won't wash off in the lake water if you put it on fairly thick."

Mena was smearing the grease over her face in broad stripes as he spoke. "Thank the Divines for that. That stuff stinks. The mercenaries would smell me coming half a mile off."

"He puts deer musk glands in it. Stops the deer smelling you coming if the wind changes. But since you're going in through the sewers anyway, it's all a bit irrelevant."

"Do you want the mercenaries dead?"

"For choice - no. We don't kill unnecessarily in the Guild. But given what happened to Vex, you're probably better taking down any of them who might be in a position to give an alarm. I'd rather not have to carry you back to Riften. Now lass - remember this. No theatricals, no heroics. Go in, get the job done, get out again with your hide in one piece. I'll be waiting here until midnight - if you're not back by then I'll come in after you. That should be more than ample time for what you need to do. Shadow hide you."

She flashed him a grim smile that was starkly white in her dark streaked face, eased herself into the water and was gone.


	4. Chapter 4

_**Author's note - the letter in bold type is direct from the game and is found in the safe in the Goldenglow Estate.**_

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><p>Waiting was always the worst part of being the second on a Guild job. Brynjolf had done it many times - for Vex, for Devlin, for Mercer himself, and for numerous recruits in their early days in the Guild. But it never got any easier, the hours of hanging around and wondering just what was actually going on. He had learned to fill the time as productively as possible, and having located the remains of a ruined cottage a little way back from the lake he had set up a small camp there, built a fire and set out some healing supplies. Then he had made a foray into the surrounding brush and taken the opportunity to restock a few of the commoner alchemy reagents that Old Philbert had been complaining they were running low on. Makework, all of it, but it kept the mind occupied. Every half hour he made a wider sweep to come down by the lake shore and stare across at the island on which the Goldenglow Estate stood. The house stood silent and dark, and there were no signs of the mercenaries moving anywhere near the borders. He could only assume that meant that all was well so far, the place would be buzzing like one of their own beehives if they had caught an intruder.<p>

Roughly half an hour before midnight he saw the flames go up on the eastern side of the island where the beehives stood. Silently he counted as one, two and then three plumes of smoke and fire illuminated the night, reflecting their ruddy glow on the lake water. "Good lass," he murmured under his breath and waited for a response from the house. None came. He knew what that meant. There was nobody left alive in the house to see it. His lips tightened as a memory washed over him.

_"She kills too easily," Delvin had said, that morning. "When we came too near that bandit camp out poaching the other night and two of their guards spotted us, you or I or Vex would have run them off and maybe knifed one if we couldn't shake them. She shot them down. Straight through the throat at a hundred paces, before either of them could give an alarm. Oh, it solved the problem, Bryn, but it's of a piece with everything else about her. She thinks like an assassin. Not like a thief."_

Mena came out of the lake around twenty minutes later, her strokes through the water dragging and slow, every muscle speaking of her tiredness with no words being necessary. He signalled her to remain silent and led her away from the road, down the twisting path between chest high brambles that ended in the ruined cottage. The fire was still smouldering and he dropped some sticks on it, tossing her an old sack to clean her face and dry herself with - that leather armour might never soak up water itself, but clothing under it always got damp. He set a small pot over the fire to boil.

Her words as she stared into the fire were terse and to the point. "Job's done."

"The mercenaries?"

"Dead. And your Vex can't count. Either that, or Aringoth brought in a few more mercenaries since she and Delvin were here. There were definitely a lot more than eight."

"And Aringoth?"

"Dead too. That wasn't my choice. I found him cowering in his own bedroom, hidden behind a wardrobe. I did try to talk him into giving me the safe key, since he'd already said that Mercer and Maven were going to cut his throat over the whole business. I thought he might actually welcome the chance just to give it to me and run. But he was more afraid than I thought - he refused and said he was already dead if he gave it to me, and then when I threatened him he drew an dagger and went for me."

"Can't be helped, lass. But it leaves us with more questions than answers. What was in the safe?"

"This." She reached inside her breastplate and passed him a small package wrapped in oilsilk. "And yes, I've read it. You didn't really expect me to go to all that trouble and not take a look at it, did you? That damned safe nearly defeated me, I'd have been back here half an hour ago if it hadn't been such a stinker to get into."

The water on the fire was boiling, he tipped some spices into it and a piece of honeycomb and set it to one side to steep. The oilsilk had done its job, the papers within the pouch were only slightly damp and still fully legible.

_**Aringoth,**_

_**This document acknowledges the sale of Goldenglow Estate and all property, assets and materials contained within. Payment of the property has been made in full by Gulum-Ei as an agent on behalf of the buyer. All dealing with the Thieves Guild in Riften is to cease immediately. To deter any possible retribution for this act, you are to take immediate steps to protect our assets in any way you see fit. I think you'll find that the Thieves Guild is far more bark than bite and will likely avoid Goldenglow Estate rather than thin their already dwindling numbers.**_

_**Good luck and may this be the start of a long and lucrative partnership.**_

He looked up. "Aringoth sold Goldenglow? Just what in the name of the Divines was the little idiot thinking of? Maven Black-Briar has a long arm, and she wouldn't have just let him walk away."

Mena made no response to this, she had turned away from the fire and was unbuckling her leather armour, setting the pieces against the wall on a dry piece of sacking. He read through the letter again. "A pity the parchment doesn't have a name on it, only this odd symbol as signature. Does it mean anything to you?"

"No." She sat down by the fire again, clad only in her damp shirt and breeches, her feet bare. "I was going to ask you that."

"Blast. I'll check with my sources when we get back to Riften and see if anyone recognises it. We may as well sit it out now until you get dry and warm, dawn's only a few hours away and we'll head back before first light."

He poured the spiced honey water into two mugs and passed one to her. As she took it from him with a word of thanks, he caught sight of two punctures side by side on her wrist. "Lass, Vex told you to burn out a skeever bite for a good reason. Have you only got the one bite?"

She sighed. "Yes, just the one. The rotten little bastard caught my arm just where the gauntlets and the armour meet. I took his head off with a dagger, but the damage was done."

He frowned. "Heat a dagger blade and do it now then. It should still be all right, but those rats carry more diseases than anything else in Skyrim." His voice was sympathetic. "I know it hurts like hell to do, lass, but as Vex told you the options are far worse. Trust me on that."

She was staring at her wrist almost as if she couldn't hear him, her body rigid with tension. A shudder ran down her back. Then she held her wrist out to him. "You do it. I can't."

It was the first sign of weakness he had seen in her since she arrived, if he discounted the nightmares that had plagued her. He made his voice quiet, matter-of-fact. "If you'd rather I did it, then I will. But you've got the brand on your face, you've endured this and worse before. Why do you say you can't do it?"

Her eyes were wide and staring, not at him but at some half remembered horror. She was muttering something under her breath but he couldn't make out the words. He drew his own pair of daggers and set one blade to heat in the fire, then left her for a minute to collect a bowl of half melted snow from the windward side of the ruins. When he returned to the fire with the bowl she hadn't moved. He set the bowl down, picked up the unheated blade and took hold of her wrist. "Heart up, lass. Take a deep breath and look away from me. It'll be over before you know it."

She nodded, biting her lip, and stared out into the darkness beyond the fire where the snow was falling again. He made an inch long cut with the dagger over the punctures, sending a thin trickle of blood down her wrist, then dropped the blade and reached for the other dagger, its blade glowing a dull red as he took it out of the fire. He took a deep breath himself and then pressed the tip hard into the cut, the edges of the small wound blackening and sizzling. A deep groan of pure pain came from Mena's throat and he fought to hold her arm still for the three agonising seconds it needed before he pulled the blade out and slapped a handful of snow over the burn. She had half turned, half fallen away from him and was on her hands and knees, vomiting everything she had eaten that day into the bushes, her whole body shaking. He could do nothing except hold her shoulders and wait for the paroxysms to pass. When they finally stopped he wiped her face as if she was a child and guided her back to the fire, wrapping a cold damp cloth around her burned wrist. "Hell's teeth, lass, I'm sorry. If I knew anything else to do for those damned bites I wouldn't have put you through that."

"Not your fault." Her teeth were chattering and he put the mug of hot honey water back into her hands, folding her fingers around it. "It's the smell. The smell of burned flesh. I haven't been able to bear it since...since..."

"Since what?"

"I don't remember." Her words were little more than a whisper and she clutched the mug so hard that her knuckles were white. "I can't remember. It's going further and further away from me the more I try."

"Perhaps then you should let it go." His voice was kind. "Whatever that memory is, there's a reason you can't recall it. There's not many of us in the Thieves Guild without a lot of things in our pasts we'd rather not remember, if the mercy of forgetfulness has been given to you then I wouldn't fight it too hard."

She smiled at that, a gallows rictus that did not touch her eyes. "Isn't madness supposed to be Sheogorath's bitter mercy to those who can accept nothing else? Perhaps forgetfulness is one step before that."

"You're as sane as I am, lass. If there's a need for the memory, it'll come."

They were both silent for a long time. Brynjolf eventually was the one to break it. "Maven Black-Briar will want to see you when we go back to Riften. She told me to send you to her when we got back if the job was successful."

"Will I survive the meeting?"

He smiled. "If she wanted you dead, she wouldn't be asking to meet you, she'd be talking to the Dark Brotherhood already. No, she'll want to pay you for this job, and she's generous to those who serve her well. I'll send a copy of this bill of sale up to her when we get back and tell her you'll see her tomorrow. And before that, if I were you, lass, I'd sleep for a day and a night when we do go back - and get Old Philbert to give you a sleeping draught to stop those dreams."

"I will."

He folded the paper and doused what remained of the fire with snow. "Come on then. We'll be home before dawn, and Riften's going to see the smoke from the Goldenglow Estate when people wake up. Word will get around that the Thieves Guild is back in business. Some will be pleased by that. Many more won't be. But if we're going to pull out of this mess we're in, it has to start somewhere, and it started at Goldenglow today."

She nodded. "Will Mercer be pleased?"

"Mercer will never admit it, lass, even if he is."


	5. Chapter 5

Maven Black-Briar was apparently happy. Or as near to happy as that woman ever got. The happiness was expressed in a large cash payment that arrived in the Guild's coffers and a sarcastic note accompanying it that suggested that since a raw recruit had succeeded in the task, perhaps she should have reduced the payment since this had clearly been a training exercise. Mercer had merely grunted as he read it and then had tossed the paper into the fire. The money had arrived, the rumours were flying, a little more respect was being shown in Riften. All in all, a win.

Mena had accepted a poisonous looking sleeping draught from Old Philbert, and after drinking it had slept the clock round twice. Vex had kept an eye on her but she hadn't stirred. Brynjolf made a mental note to see if Philbert could make her a weaker version, something that she could take every night rather than using occasionally as a doorway to a full day and night's oblivion. Philbert would probably come up with some good reason why this was completely impossible, the old alchemist seemed to have an excuse for anything. But it never hurt to ask.

When Mena finally returned to the land of the living, she disappeared to her interview with Maven and came back with a stony face and no hint of what had been said. Brynjolf didn't bother questioning her. Sooner or later, it would come out, if it needed to.

There was a strange feeling in the air in the Flagon. Hard to put a name to it but it could almost be called hope. It was so long since the Guild had had a notable success that there were people here now who had never seen the place when a big job had just gone well against all the odds, that spark in the air that made everything possible, at least for one night. But there was an feeling of energy in the place again, people were no longer going through the motions and expecting failure. If this could be done, if people in Riften were talking about the Guild, then maybe, just maybe, the run of luck - or the curse, if you listened to Delvin - could change.

"She's lucky, that girl." Delvin was in his usual corner, nursing a larger than usual cup of mead.

"She's no more lucky or unlucky than any of us, Delvin." Vex was shaking her head. "Watch her picking locks, picking pockets, she has no more successes or failures than anyone else her standard."

"That's not what I mean." He gestured with the cup. "She isn't lucky or unlucky in herself. But she's brought some luck back into this place, and the Lady only knows we needed it."

"You and your superstitions." Brynjolf was laughing. "First the curse, now you say the lass who you thought was going to make trouble is carrying the luck back in here."

"I still say she'll make trouble, boss. But if she's brought the Dark Lady's favour back here, then we can live with a bit of trouble."

Vex was the one laughing now. "And aren't you the one who's always saying it's ill fortune to name the Lady? Bit of a contradiction, isn't it, Del? You'll be believing in the Nightingales next."

"Not sure I'd go that far, Vexy. But if young Mena's carrying the Lady's Luck with her, then who knows."

"That's another thing." Brynjolf was looking thoughtful. "The lass is a woman, not a girl. Why do we all think of her as so young?"

Vex was looking at the entrance to the Cistern and then she suddenly frowned. "Hold up. Mercer's coming."

Mercer Frey had entered the Flagon almost before Vex stopped speaking, and he was heading straight for Brynjolf. "We've got another letter from Maven."

"Oh?" Brynjolf set his cup down. "And what is our best customer's problem this time?"

"Well, you'd better read this yourself"

Brynjolf took the paper from Mercer's hands and looked at it. The writing was Maven Black-Briar's classic angular script, pressed so hard into the parchment that it was amazing the paper hadn't torn. He read it out in an undertone.

_Mercer_

_Good to see that you're actually acquiring the odd competent member in the Thieves Guild. I was quite impressed with the young woman, I might even have considered stealing her from you but she'd have limited use in my outfit, a woman who isn't attractive enough to seduce the results I want out of men who keep their brains in their breeches is always going to be at a disadvantage. Find me one like her who's pretty as well and you might lose her..._

_Anyway, to get to the point. Now that the honey's coming in from Goldenglow, I need your people to look into a problem at the Whiterun end. Send someone halfway competent to talk to Mallus Maccius at the Bannered Mare, he's been keeping an eye on that layabout Sabjorn who runs the Honningbrew Meadery. As you know, Sabjorn has been a thorn in my side for years, and among the few regrets in my life is the fact that I let Sabjorn get as far as he has, but for a long time he seemed a very minor headache - small operation in the early stages and plenty of time to sit on it if it became troublesome. Now, suddenly he's got his brew to market in quantity, and it's selling well. I risk losing most of my western custom if he carries on, and I still want to know just where he got the money from to start producing the stuff in these quantities._

_Even now the Goldenglow situation is back under control, my production will be down for a while. I can't allow Sabjorn to get his feet under the table at this point and equally I would rather not have to clean up the mess that would be caused by a more obvious "torch his meadery and knife him" solution, though I admit the idea has a certain...appeal. For me the optimal solution would be to have him end up in prison, and preferably for something he's going to find very hard to explain away. You may find Mallus has a few ideas on the subject or of course you may have your own. Either way, I have a nice sum of gold waiting for a job well done._

_You may want to send that young woman Minna or whatever her name is to have a go at this again. But if you do, make sure you drum into her head that wholesale slaughter is not going to be a solution. She appears to have a rather...direct attitude to most problems._

_Maven_

He looked up from his reading. "Well, for Maven that was almost...cheerful"

Mercer scowled. "Well, I can tell you, we are not sending your protege to do this one, Brynjolf. I am not having Maven think she can dictate how we run our missions - and I am certainly not having any more snide comments about training missions carrying a cheaper price. You're taking this one yourself. I don't mind if you want to take the girl as second - Delvin's given her a bedlam job for Whiterun anyway, you could combine the two. But this one you're going to handle. Clear?"

"Clear."

Mercer stalked off and Brynjolf looked round at Vex and Delvin who were both laughing. "Can't the pair of you even pretend you aren't listening in?"

"Why bother, boss? You'd know we were listening anyway. All we learned from that is that you're getting a couple of weeks away from home with your little Redguard girlfriend. I hope the two of you have a lot of fun, if you got laid once in a while you might be a bit more relaxed when things go wrong."

Brynjolf ignored the needling. "Having warned you when she came, Del, that the lass is quick with her daggers, I wouldn't be risking my own family jewels either. Mena's virtue is safe with me."

"Safe with most men, according to Maven," Vex added.

"Meow, Vexy." Delvin raised an eyebrow. "That was catty, even for you."

Vex acknowledged the hit with a half wave of the hand. "Look, she succeeded on the job I failed on. Don't expect me to love her for it. And she's not that ugly, whatever Maven said in the letter."

"But she's no rival to you in looks, and it's probably the only reason you can still bring yourself to be civil to her," Delvin finished, grinning. Vex slapped his face. He threw a hand up, still laughing. "All right, all right, Vexy, subject closed."

Brynjolf was looking around. "Where is she anyway?"

"I sent her out on a sweep job, boss. Quick in and out in Riften, told her to get back to the Flagon before last orders, and no theatricals along the way."

"Didn't we agree we weren't going to use her in Riften itself?" Vex looked curious. "At least till we worked out just what she did to scare the living crap out of everyone round here that owed us money?"

"Yes, well, I also told her if she killed anyone she wasn't getting paid. I think it sank in."

"What did you send her out for?"

Delvin laughed. "A ring that Vekel wanted for Tonilia."

Vex raised her eyebrows. "He isn't still trying to convince her to marry him, is he?"

"Of course he is. She'll never agree. But he won't stop trying."

Mena appeared from the Ratway at that moment, picking her way over the slimy cobbles towards the Flagon. Delvin leaned back in his chair. "Job done, girl?"

"Job done." She dropped a small parcel on the table beside him.

Delvin opened the wrappings and inspected the contents, a solitaire sapphire in an ornate white gold setting. "Good work. If you aren't careful I might actually start to respect you. Go get yourself a drink and I'll sort your money out later."

She nodded, gave a curious glance at Brynjolf and Vex and moved over to the bar. Brynjolf stood up. "When you settle up with her, Del, tell her that I want to see her in about an hour."

"Will do, boss."

Vex was looking round the Flagon as though seeing it for the first time. "Maybe if this job in Whiterun goes off well, Bryn, we could have a bit of a clean-up in here. Get some decent stuff in, clear out the alcoves, give Philbert a better place to work. There's no real reason it has to be like this down here except that none of us had the energy to do anything about it."

"True." Brynjolf was following her gaze.

Vex sounded almost wistful. "This was a city beneath a city once, Bryn, as you know. Then the luck turned, and people started leaving. It didn't get like this down here overnight. Maybe given time we can do something about it."

"Maybe, lass. Change has to start somewhere. But first we had to believe it could change."


	6. Chapter 6

"You'd think that those mages at the College of Winterhold might one day when bored turn their attention to a better means of getting across a country than a horse and cart," Mena grumbled, trying to find a position on the hard seat that was marginally more comfortable. "Even a folded sheepskin doesn't do much to cushion these seats."

Brynjolf smiled and refused to be ruffled. "Ah, lass, their minds are clearly on higher things than the comfort of a few Nord backsides - or indeed Redguard backsides."

Mena snorted. "I thought you told me that they spent their time blowing up Winterhold?"

"Well, they claim that the Great Collapse was nothing to do with them. But nobody in Skyrim believes it."

They were now within a few hours of arriving at Whiterun and the arrival couldn't come soon enough for either of the two thieves. The journey had been long, slow and very cold and about all that one could say was that it had not actually rained. Or snowed. But it was still not a comfortable trip, and the incessant boredom only made it worse.

Brynjolf had anticipated the boredom and had brought with him a small bag containing a selection of locks that had been hacked out of old chests and boxes. He had used some of the time to give Mena a succession of intensive tutorials in lock picking. They were the only two passengers on the cart anyway, most Nords had better things to do than a trip across half the country in the back end of the winter. And that old idiot who drove the cart was so blind he'd never notice what they were doing. It was a firm belief in Riften that the horse knew its way back and forward from Whiterun without any great input from the driver.

The tutorials weren't as successful as he'd hoped. There were always some recruits who just couldn't learn lockpicking by feel, but who became better at it once they understood exactly how the locks worked inside - they rarely made the best cracksmen in the long run, but they usually were more than competent for anything except the most intricate of locks. Mena did not appear to be one of those however - her feel for the lock was generally good, but her ability to apply controlled pressure at precisely the right moment to turn the tumblers was poor.

"Lass," Brynjolf told her, "you pick a lock as if you had a vendetta against it. There's a reason you break your picks half the time even when you have them in the right position - you seem to believe that once the position is right, it should just fall into place. I told you before, a lock isn't like that. You coax, you cajole, you ease. Stroke the tumblers into position, don't batter them."

"I know." She scowled at the pick that had just broken in her fingers. "Why can't we just have stronger lockpicks?"

He laughed. "Because, lass, given the choice between breaking a pick in the lock which allows you to have another try, and breaking the lock itself, there's no contest. Better to go through ten picks and finally open the thing, than to break it beyond all hope of repair and have to noisily smash through it to get what you want. It's just practice, Mena. Here, take this one and have another go, it's a bit easier."

She took the new lock and a fresh pick with a sigh. "So, why can't we have lockpicks that are both strong enough not to break, and delicate enough not to break the lock?"

Brynjolf raised his eyebrows. "Don't want much, do you, lass? You'll be asking for the Skeleton Key next."

Mena looked puzzled. "What's the Skeleton Key?"

"An old legend, lass. Basically, it's what you're asking for. A lockpick that cannot be broken, cannot break a lock no matter how inept the cracksman, and opens a magical or a mundane lock with equal ease. Unfortunately according to the legend it is the property of the Mistress of Shadows, or whatever name you give her in Hammerfel - Delvin always calls her the Dark Lady, or just the Lady. And also according to the legends it turns up every so often, ends up in the hands of a hero, and promptly seems to get lost again. So I wouldn't hold your breath waiting to see if you ever find it. Better just to get the skill in the first place and then you won't need it anyway."

She heaved a sigh and turned her attention back to the lock in her fingers.

The cart rolled into Whiterun stables an hour before dusk and they jumped down and stretched stiff muscles before gathering their belongings. Unlike Riften, the Whiterun guards made no attempt to extract a toll from the two visitors to the city, and Brynjolf muttered something as the gate was locked behind them

Mena looked at him. "What did you say?"

"I said that Delvin's right, lass. We need more of a presence in the Heartlands and the western cities. If there's nobody in this town that can even be bothered to set up a shakedown at the gate, then it's high time the Thieves Guild did something about it."

The Bannered Mare was easily found, as was Maven's contact there who was sitting in a back room and swilling down a large jug of the Honningbrew Meadery's product. Brynjolf slid into a seat beside him and annexed the jug. "Lass, go get what you need to do here done. If all goes well, I'll meet you back at the stables for the return journey at dawn tomorrow. If it goes badly, then you come back here, find Maccius here and do whatever needs to be done."

"Got it." She kicked her rucksack under the bench and sauntered towards the door. A couple of hopeful patrons whistled in her direction, she leaned over and said something to one of them that had him blushing and his mates roaring with laughter, then the door banged shut behind her and she was gone.

Mallus Maccius leaned back in his chair and belched. "So that's your new trainee is it? Maven mentioned her in the letter. Perhaps I ought to have warned the girl there's a few of her countrymen in town and making trouble...ah well, it's a bit late now."

"There's other Redguards visiting the city?"

"Aye. Nasty looking bunch of thugs. Call themselves Alik'r or something like that. They've been asking all around the city for a Redguard woman, and from the way they're acting I don't think they mean to ask her out for a dance and a drink. Your girl ought to be safe enough though, they've described the woman they want and she's typical Redguard - black hair, dark skin, dark eyes. Your lass with the blonde hair and copper skin doesn't fit the bill. As a matter of fact I suspect the one they want is Saadia who's a barmaid here, and I guess she thinks so too - nobody's seen her in twelve hours which probably means she's done a runner. Just as well too, I wouldn't want those big bastards after me either."

Brynjolf sampled the mead. "This isn't bad - this is from Honningbrew?"

"Aye, it is. You can see why Maven's not happy. The stuff isn't as good as her best, but it's a lot better than her worst, and he's producing it in large quantities, and cheaply. So this is what we're going to do about it..."

And roughly twelve hours later, Brynjolf still couldn't believe how well it had gone. Mallus had already substituted something for the poison that Sabjorn had bought - he pointed out that they didn't want a murder investigation into the place, they wanted the Captain to reckon the product wasn't fit for drinking. The bottle that Brynjolf was given stank to high heaven, Mallus had said there was skeever piss in it amongst other things. Sabjorn had been pitifully grateful that someone had offered to clean out the skeevers, he hadn't even asked any questions. The trip through the tunnels had not been pleasant, not only were there a seriously large number of the vermin down there but there was also some demented mage down there who Mallus had given no warning about - if Brynjolf hadn't been so fast with a thrown dagger the whole job might have taken a very different turn. Papers found on the man's body suggested he'd been responsible for the whole skeever problem in the first place, but Brynjolf burned out the nest anyway, no sense in leaving the job half done. Then at the boilery he dumped Mallus's flask into the vat of mead that the man had described, and wandered back round to the main hall of the place to report success and watch the fun.

When Captain Caius had turned up for his end-of-night-shift free mug of mead, the results had been spectacular. He had tossed a pint of the stuff straight down his throat, turned pea green and bolted for the privy. When he finished vomiting, he immediately arrested Sabjorn despite the latter's hysterical protests, and put Mallus in charge of the place pending a full investigation. The smug smile on Mallus's face should have given the game away but luckily the Captain didn't seem to be at his most observant as he escorted his prisoner off the premises.

Brynjolf turned over Sabjorn's quarters once the two were safely away, pocketed a few curiosities that took his fancy and sorted through the paperwork on the desk. Most of it was mundane, but he struck gold after about ten minutes of searching - a parchment bearing the same strange symbol as the one at the Goldenglow Estate.

_Sabjorn,_

_Within the enclosed crate, you'll find the final payment. As we discussed, Honningbrew Meadery should now begin brewing mead at full production. In regards to your concerns about interference from Maven Black-Briar, I can assure you that I'll do everything in my power to keep her assets and her cronies at bay. This is the beginning of a long and successful future for both of us. _

He shook his head as he pocketed it. This wasn't going to make Mercer happy at all - and who on earth was this stranger who was so determined to make trouble? But the job was done for now, time to pick up Mena at the stables and start the journey home.

On the way back he froze and ducked behind some bushes. Mena was standing outside the stable buildings and four big Redguard men in desert dress were surrounding her. Brynjolf cursed - these must have been the four that had been making trouble in Whiterun searching for Redguard women, clearly the fact that she didn't match the description they had been giving wasn't deterring them. He silently palmed a stiletto and waited - if one of them made a move on her he could probably get that one down with a well timed throw, and a second one while they were startled, if she was quick she might be able to deal with the other two, then...

And then what happened next confounded all his expectations. The tall Alik'r who appeared to be their leader knelt to Mena in the dust of the road, took her hand and kissed it with the profound reverence that would have been shown to a statue of one of the Divines. The other men followed his example. Mena laid a hand on his forehead and said something in a soft voice that produced a hint of a smile on the man's brown face, the pale sunlight glinted in her honey hair and for a moment the scene was something out of an old story, a dark princess crowned with gold accepting the fealty of her warriors. Then the sun drifted behind a cloud, the moment passed, the Alik'r swiftly vanished behind the buildings and all that was left was a tired, snub nosed Redguard thief with a dirty face, gazing at the walls of Whiterun with no expression other than perhaps a little sadness.

Brynjolf joined her. He said nothing. She looked over her shoulder at him. "You saw that, didn't you."

"I did, lass." He paused. "I assume if I asked you what on earth that was about, you would just lie to me again?"

"Probably."

"Then I won't ask. All I want is your word that it's something that doesn't affect me or the guild."

"It doesn't affect you or the guild. That, I promise you."

The cart had arrived, and he helped her up into it, throwing the sack that she was carrying in with their rucksacks and the bag from Honningbrew. As the cart creaked off, he peered at the sack. "Did you get anything good, lass?"

"A few things. Jewellery, some trinkets. A nice matched pair of glass daggers from that armorer near the city gates. And Jarl Balgruuf's war axe."

His jaw dropped. "Please tell me you're joking."

"Yes, I'm joking." She had a glint of mischief in her eye. "But I could have got it. The Dragonsreach security is lousy. I did think about it when I saw it."

"Lass, you're completely insane. What on earth would you have done with it if you had stolen it?"

"Oh, I'd probably have taken it down to Jarl Ulfric the next time I was in Windhelm."

Brynjolf was shaking his head slowly. "I say again, lass, you're insane. Thank the Divines you didn't do it. Did you actually want to start a war between the two cities?"

"Why not?" She was watching the countryside slip past them slowly and her final words were so quiet that he probably was not supposed to have heard them at all. Quiet, and very sad.

"It's what I do best, after all."


	7. Chapter 7

When they got home, they found they had managed to miss a war.

Well, that was perhaps a slightly over-dramatic way of putting it. In the couple of weeks that they had spent getting to Whiterun and back, the ever present civil war had spilled over into the Rift. A couple of forts had changed hands, there had been some skirmishes well away from the city, and the end result was that Jarl Laila Law-Giver had gone into exile (or had gone to bewail her sorrows into Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak's ear), and the city of Riften was now ruled by Jarl Maven Black-Briar. Whether most people in the city had even noticed the change of ruler was questionable. Business went on as usual. It certainly made little difference to the Thieves Guild. Maven had all but run the city for so long anyway that it just meant the bribes got paid direct to the Jarl herself instead of lining her pockets by a more indirect route.

Mercer received Brynjolf and Mena back with a grunt, took the letter that Brynjolf had found and read it with a frown on his face. "Same symbol as at Goldenglow." He placed a finger on the paper. "We need to identify this."

"My contacts didn't recognise it." Brynjolf put the Honningbrew letter side by side with the newer one. "Handwriting's the same as well."

Mena was standing well back from the two men. Mercer looked up and frowned at her. "Something you wanted to say, girl?"

"Only that the writer's a woman."

Both men looked at her.

"And how on earth would you know that, lass?" Brynjolf looked curious.

"This." She laid a finger on the paper. "She wears a woman's bracelet on her right wrist. It's indented the vellum in two places on this letter, one on the other, where she's rested her hand while considering the next sentence. Fine chain links, too delicate for a man."

Mercer held both letters up to the light. "Not convinced. Those marks could be anything."

Mena shrugged. "As you say." She seemed disinclined to argue.

Mercer waved her away. "Go and take your stuff to Delvin and Tonilia anyway. Good work, Redguard, looks like you've brought us a decent amount of coin from that trip."

As Mena left, Mercer read through the Honningbrew letter again. "Pull up a chair, Brynjolf, and pour yourself a drink. There's mead in the jug." He had a sour smile on his face. "It would appear that our adversary, whoever she is, is trying to take us apart indirectly by angering Maven Black-Briar. Clever. Very clever. And it could so easily have worked if you and your Redguard girl hadn't found these letters."

"You sound almost admiring, Mercer. Maybe we should think about recruiting them rather than killing them if we manage to hunt them down."

Mercer snorted. "You may well jest, Brynjolf, but this is a plan that seems to have been years in the making. This is someone who is both clever and patient, and that's a dangerous combination. Just don't mistake my admiration for complacency. Our nemesis here is going to pay dearly for what she's done. Because at last she's made a mistake."

Brynjolf looked curious. "How so?"

"This." Mercer traced a finger down the letter. "We know who the contact is - Gulum-Ei in Solitude. I've been wanting an excuse to take a proper look at what that lizard's been up to for a very long time - and it seems I should have been keeping a closer eye on him. Oh, I know he's been useful, Bryn, having someone on the inside with the East Empire company was worth all the petty annoyances. But this isn't just the lizard creaming off the top of the pickings before passing them to us. This is treachery, pure and simple, and he's going to pay for it."

"Now, hold on a minute." Brynjolf held up a hand. "I can't believe that Gulum-Ei is mixed up in this. Let's face it, that idiot Argonian couldn't find his tail with both hands. I know he could scam a beggar out of his last septim, but as a criminal mastermind - it's laughable. He simply hasn't got the brains for it."

"I would tend to agree with you." Mercer refilled Brynjolf's mead cup and took a swig from his own bottle of spirit. "So he's been manipulated - but at least there's a fighting chance that the stubborn old cuss knows who he's dealing with. But getting out of him who he's been dealing with...well, that's something else."

"Do you want me to go to Solitude?"

"No, Bryn, this one I'm going to deal with myself. You'd try bribing him, and it wouldn't work, he'd take your money, send you off on a fool's errand and then lie to you when you got back. No disrespect to you, what you do for the Guild you do well. But Gulum-Ei is a different kettle of fish. As I said, I wanted to check on him anyway."

Brynjolf frowned. "Mercer, you're not thinking of a ...permanent solution there, are you?"

Mercer's mouth quirked in a one-sided smile. "I'm not going to kill him, if that's what you mean. Just going to remind him who we are. If I hang around there for a few days and keep on his tail, sooner or later he'll tread in something he can't scrape off that easily. He's been useful in the past but as you know the pickings from the East Empire Company have been slim for a while, and I may well manage to find out why while I'm there."

"Fair enough." Brynjolf stood up. "Who do you want as second? Vex?"

Mercer shook his head. "This one I'll do alone. Nothing that I'm likely to need springing from jail for there, unless our mysterious adversary turns up, and if she does, she'll have a nasty surprise waiting for her. Go rest, Brynjolf, you've earned it."

Brynjolf wandered back through to the Flagon, deep in thought. It hadn't escaped him that although Mercer had dismissed Mena's assessment that their adversary was a woman he had then referred to the unknown opponent as "she" all the way through the conversation; clearly he had paid some attention to the Redguard's analysis. And he couldn't be sorry that he wasn't about to have to trek across the country on a cart in midwinter only a day after getting home from the Whiterun job. But Mercer had always been the one who was most adamant that Guild jobs were not to be done singly, and now he was breaking his own rules.

Vex was nowhere to be seen when he entered the Flagon, nor was Tonilia, and nor was Mena. Delvin was occupying his usual table together with an older man that Brynjolf didn't recognise. Delvin beckoned. "Come and meet Herluin Lothaire, Bryn. He's an old friend of Philbert's and now that Philbert has deserted us..."

"He's what?"

"Oh, nothing dramatic. He decided he's spent enough years down here in the cold and the damp cooking up potions and poisons, he only stayed because it was completely impossible for us to get another alchemist. But now things are looking up a bit for us, he persuaded Herluin here that we weren't as much of a lost cause as people thought, and Herluin's taken over. We had to clear out an alcove in the Flagon for him though, he took one look at Philbert's corner of the Cistern and flatly refused to work there."

"I don't blame him." Brynjolf nodded to Herluin. "Welcome to the Guild. Del, at least that gives you another Breton round here to talk to."

Herluin drained his mug. "Well, gentlemen, if you will excuse me, I have some brews that need attending. Brynjolf, if you have any specific requirements come and talk to me later and I'll see what I can do."

As Herluin left, Brynjolf took his seat at the table. Delvin was looking unusually smug. Brynjolf frowned. "All right, out with it, Delvin. What's got you so happy?"

"We've had a win over in the west, boss. I got a special job request come in from Markarth about ten days before you went to Whiterun, and I sent Dirge and Rune over to do it. They came back yesterday. The client was very happy. Very happy indeed. So happy, that he's now opening a lot of doors for us in Markarth. Guards looking the other way, bit of respect being shown. Partly how we got Herluin, he came with them from Markarth and he said he'd heard we were back in business. And I gather your little job in Whiterun went well on all counts too."

Brynjolf laughed. "And how would you know that, Del?"

"Well, Tonilia was purring like a cat that got the cream after she saw what Mena brought back with her. Coffers are going to be better this winter than they've been for twenty years. She and Vex and your Mena have gone out to offload some of the stuff on Riften shops, the pieces that don't need careful placing. But I got her to leave the daggers behind. Did Mena show you them?"

He frowned. "No, the lass just said that she'd taken a nice matched pair from the armorer in Whiterun. Why?"

"Take a look at them, boss. See if you recognise them."

Delvin produced a cherrywood box and opened it, inside it a pair of shimmering green glass daggers rested on a bed of black velvet. Brynjolf picked one out and balanced it on the side of his hand, it rested there with hardly a tremble. "Excellent balance. Made for a woman or an elven hand by the look of them, they're lighter than my blades." He turned it over. "Some wear on the blade itself, this has been reground at least once. Looks like Morrowind glass, it's paler than the stuff we mine here. Reminds me of the weapons they forged in Vvardenfell before the Red Mountain eruption, but probably a much later copy."

"You're not getting it, boss. Look at the hilts."

He examined the hilts. "Red leather, some wear. Hang on, these are named." He tilted them up to the light. "Left hand blade is called Memory, right hand blade is called Vengeance. And there's something else...oh..." His voice tailed off.

Delvin nodded grimly. "Yes. Both blades carry thiefsign. Memory has the sigil for betrayal, Vengeance has the sigil for death. Hand carved beside the name. Now, I ask you. Who carried twin glass daggers, specially commissioned for her by Gallus? Who knew thiefsign well enough to carve it on her blades? And who have we been hoping for years was dead and gone?"

"Karliah." In Brynjolf's soft Nord accents, the name became an obscenity.

"Karliah," Delvin agreed. "Now, Bryn, I know what you're going to say, that her daggers appearing is no proof that she's alive. For all we know, the bones of that murdering Dunmer moulder somewhere in a cave in Skyrim and some scavenger found her blades. I hope that's the case. But I don't think it is."

"Why not?"

"Because I recognised the box as well. Made for her at the same time as the daggers. A scavenger might have found her blades but she wouldn't have carried the box on her. Bryn, we have to consider the possibility that she's alive, and that she sold these in Whiterun."

"Have you told Mercer?"

"You must be joking. Given he isn't sane on the subject of that Dark Elf at the best, presenting him with proof that she's probably alive and well would be just about enough to tip him over the edge. I wouldn't trust him not to shoot the messenger."

"I hear you." Brynjolf thought for a moment. "Who else has seen these?"

"Nobody. I took them off Mena before she went to talk to Tonilia, told her I'd get them appraised elsewhere."

"Right, let's keep it that way. Mercer's off to explain a few things to Gulum-Ei, that gives us a few days to decide what to do about these." He rested his head in his hands. "Why now? Why, after all this time is that bitch surfacing?"

"Wish I knew, boss. It isn't going to be for a good reason, any way you look at it."

"Understatement, Del. Major understatement."


	8. Chapter 8

The fact that the Thieves Guild threw a party almost the instant that Mercer had left Riften wasn't exactly cause and effect. There was usually some sort of late winter-early spring celebration roughly corresponding to the Northern festival of Icebreaker, even if it rarely actually froze in the southern marshes of Riften.

But there was some air of relief that Mercer's sardonic eye was off the Guild, at least for a while. And two big successes within a month deserved a party. Some negotiations with the Bee and Barb had produced an offer of the whole ground floor for a night in return for a reduction on the protection money for the next six months - an offer readily agreed to by Vex who had done the negotiations. There was also a sub clause in the agreement of "don't send the Redguard to get the money this time, I'll make sure you get it on time." Also agreed to without argument.

"Icebreaker" Brynjolf explained to Mena, "is one of the oldest Skyrim festivals. It is supposed to be the first sign of spring, and is tested for in the northern city of Solitude by lobbing a warhammer at a particular frozen lake. If the ice cracks, that's Icebreaker, the first sign that warmth will return to this land again."

Mena laughed. "Who thought that one up?"

"Divines only know, lass. Probably some drunk Nord, about eight centuries ago. But it's a good excuse for a party."

And so, with the guards paid off and a sweetener to Jarl Maven to ensure no interruptions, most of the Thieves Guild were getting happily drunk. A table laden with roast venison and other dainties occupied a corner, but while people were taking plates occasionally, the mead and mulled ale were considered to be a far more important part of the festivities. And now most people were merry enough to contribute something to the entertainment as well.

Delvin had sung a bawdy ballad from High Rock with assistance on the choruses from most of the company who had heard the song before, if not in its entirity - a tale of a hapless minstrel and his disasters with the ladies in every city he came to. Vex had followed it with a display of knife tossing that got gasps from most watchers even if they had seen her skills before. Then Tonilia had brought out a pair of small drums that produced a glance of recognition from Mena, and had played a strange rhythm on them while telling a story that surprisingly was not of either Skyrim or her home land of Hammerfell, but from the lost island of Vvardenfell in Morrowind, about the coming of the Nerevarine and the battle against Dagoth Ur in the depths of Red Mountain. Divines only knew how much of it was true, historical tales rarely lost anything in the telling, and the likelihood that the Nerevarine had ever done a quarter of what the tale attributed to him was tiny, but it made for a good story.

When Tonilia finally finished, there was applause. She acknowledged it with a grin and turned to Brynjolf. "Your turn now, Bryn."

He laughed. "Oh come on, lass. Have a heart. I didn't bring my harp anyway."

"You didn't, but I did." Vex passed a bundle over to him. "I seem to remember you used that excuse the last time we had a party. There's no getting out of it this time, Bryn."

"You're an evil woman, Vex." Brynjolf unwrapped the small harp and started to tune it, his head tilted to listen to the strings. "Any requests?"

There was some discussion and a few called suggestions. Brynjolf nodded and played a couple of drinking songs that everyone could roar along to, then paused and retuned a couple of the strings, modulating the notes to an odd key neither major or minor. "Here's one you may not have heard for a while - and people who don't come from Skyrim may not have heard at all. " He bent his head to the harp, and sang in a soft baritone:

**"Our hero, our hero, claims a warrior's heart**

**I tell you, I tell you, the Dragonborn comes**

**With a Voice wielding power of the ancient Nord art**

**Believe, believe, the Dragonborn comes**

**It's an end to the evil, of all Skyrim's foes**

**Beware, beware, the Dragonborn comes**

**For the darkness has passed, and the legend yet grows**

**You'll know, you'll know the Dragonborn's come"**

There was silence from the company as they listened, somehow in the half darkness the simple melody and lyrics took on a deeper meaning and a promise. When the song finished there was an appreciative silence and then soft clapping.

Delvin was the first to break the mood. "So, Bryn, if the Nords have been singing that for centuries, where on earth is this Dragonborn?"

"Still coming," Vex quipped, and the whole room exploded into laughter.

Brynjolf also chuckled as he returned the harp to the wrappings. "Perhaps he ought to hurry up. Helgen could certainly have used him a few months ago."

The mood was turning more sombre. Delvin retrieved the pitcher of mulled ale from the hearth and filled Brynjolf's cup. "Maybe Jarl Ulfric Stormcloak thinks he's the Dragonborn. There's certainly plenty of evidence that he has the Voice - shouted the High King to death if you believe the story."

"Ah yes, Del, but he went to the Greybeards to learn it, they say that the Voice can be learned by anyone who has the patience to train with them. If the stories are right, the Dragonborn will have the Voice already within them, and be able to use it without training. "

"Doesn't stop wishful thinking, Bryn. If he was indeed a hero of legend it would add a lot of legitimacy to what he's doing in Skyrim."

Brynjolf turned to Mena, who was sitting beside him. "Your turn now, lass."

Mena looked startled. "I can't sing."

He laughed. "Then dance, or tell us a story. Nobody gets out of it on a night like this."

She was still shaking her head. "I can't dance either."

Tonilia got up and passed her drums to the other Redguard girl. "I guess that means you tell us a story then. You'd better have these before you try to use the excuse that you can't tell a desert tale without drums either."

Mena sighed, but she tapped the drums and then tightened the bands that held the hides over the metal frames, setting them a tone higher than they had been for Tonilia's tale. "I know no stories to make a company laugh, do you really want me to tell a tragedy on a night like tonight?"

Brynjolf passed her a cup of ale. "No excuses. Have a drink to give you heart, and then if you have to tell us a sad tale, so be it. We can always chase it away with more mead later."

She looked him full in the face. "Don't say I didn't warn you." Then she began to beat out a soft rhythm on the drums, and began.

_Mena's Tale:_

_Hammerfell stands as it has always done, bordered by the Abacean Sea to the south, and holding the Great Desert at its heart as a jewel. The land was originally called Volenfell, a name given to it by the Rourken Clan of Dwemer during the First Era. It is said that the leader of the clan threw his mighty hammer, Volendrung, across the continent, and followed it to their new home. It was later named Hegathe by the Aldmer and Deathland by the Nedic peoples, before the Redguards arrived and named it Hammerfell._

_But we, the Redguard, the Desert People, called it Hammerfell for more reasons than a legend of a tossed hammer. There is no name in our tongue that does not have meaning within meaning, layer within layer. The Alik'r Desert is our hammer, a harsh land that has molded us as a people just as a smith shapes metal on an anvil, tempering us in desert sun to the sword blades that we become. And there is also grief in the name for us, because it predicts our end, that our guard will fail and at the last we will be overcome._

_When we tell stories to our children, we do not begin with the customary "Once upon a time." We begin and end with the statement of who we are._

_We are the people of the desert. Born under the Dragon Wind, we arise from the sands, and our ashes will return to it. Desert sand we are, and desert sand we shall be, and all our lives are written on that sand. But what is written on sand under the Dragon Wind is not forgotten._

_We call our royal houses Windborn. Like your legends in Skyrim we also claim descent from men who bore the blood of the dragons. But we do not predict any saviour to come in our legends. The desert has taught us that there is no salvation but what a man makes for himself._

_When the White Gold Concordat was signed, Hammerfel seceded from the Empire. The nobles considered it black betrayal of the worst kind when the Emperor gave Hammerfell territory to the Aldmeri Dominion. One of our oldest royal houses sent a challenge to the Dominion. "If you want it, come and take it. But you will pay blood price for it, and the day will come when you will say the price was too high."_

_And ten years ago they came. Oh they came. Their soldiers swarmed over the Coastlands like termites pouring out of a mound. Most of our people withdrew to the interior, to the desert tribes, and those Altmer who followed them did not live long, the desert is a harsh teacher and sets a high price on failure._

_Taneth was the only coastal city that was not evacuated. The King and Queen refused to leave when it became clear that the city could not be emptied of its women and children before the Dominion's armies arrived. They led a desperate defence and for many months the invading armies broke on Taneth's walls like waves on rock. In time the place could have been starved into submission but it would have taken months more, maybe even years._

_Instead, Taneth fell to treachery, the treachery of a woman. Iman, leader of one of the great noble houses, sold the city to the Dominion and taught them the passwords that would admit them through the sewer defences. What did she hope to gain? Money? Safety? To rule the city herself as an Altmer puppet? We do not know. Suffice it to say that she did, the defences were bypassed and the city fell._

_And the atrocities began. The Dominion chose to make an example of Taneth, in the hopes that it would terrify the rest of Hammerfell into submission. The executions took place day and night, and no mercy was shown to any. Men who had participated in the city's defence writhed on crosses or screamed in the fires. Women and children were taken as slaves if they were lucky. If they were not lucky...well. You don't want to know that part of the story._

_But when they came to take the King and Queen to their burning, it was found that even in the destroyed city, resistance remained. Because when the guards came for them, they found that someone else had got there first. A boy of about fourteen or fifteen, wearing desert garb, his head shaved in the tribal fashion, had somehow bypassed the guards and got as far as the condemned cells. He could not get them out, but he had brought them the only escape left, a sharp blade. There was nothing left in the cell but the dead, and he lay across the outside of the cell door, dying, his veins opened by his own hand._

_Oh, they burned them anyway. They took the bodies of the king and queen, and their son, and set them on posts, and burned them for the people of the city to watch. But it gave the wrong message. It showed Hammerfell that even in the worst of times, resistance was possible. And the desert tribes rose in outrage. Nobody had ever realised there were so many of them. They swept out of the desert and into the coastlands like a wave of darkness, and the Aldmeri Dominion fell back before them again and again, until at last they were driven back into the sea. Eventually the Dominion without ever conceding defeat withdrew their forces from Hammerfell._

_The traitress, Iman, was never found. It was believed she had fled to the Dominion itself but there was no confirmation. Still later sightings placed her in High Rock. But she is still hunted. The Redguard do not forget._

_And what of the boy? Where had he come from? Who sent him? Who was he? His body was not found when the Thalmor came to look for it. The most likely answer was that it was burned, nameless, like so many others. It was suspected that the Dark Brotherhood had sent him but even under truth magic those from the Brotherhood who were found for questioning swore they had sent no boy. They even questioned the Thieves Guild in case the boy had found refuge with them after somehow escaping the city, but the Thieves Guild had no boy of that age in training with them in any coastal city. There were even stories told that he was the bastard grandson of the King, by an illegitimate daughter who had died before the invasion began, but those who had known her swore that the only son she ever bore died in infancy. So whoever he was, it is likely that his ashes were carried on the Dragon Wind like so many, and they mingle with the sand._

_We are the people of the desert. Born under the Dragon Wind, we arise from the sands, and our ashes will return to it. Desert sand we are, and desert sand we shall be, and all our lives are written on that sand. But what is written on sand under the Dragon Wind is not forgotten._

There was silence. Mena stood up, pushing the drums away from her, they fell with a clatter into the hearth and were retrieved by Tonilia a second before they rolled into the fire. Blindly, she stumbled towards the door, pushing it open and letting a blast of cold air in, then it banged shut behind her, and she was gone.

Delvin was the first to move, turning towards Brynjolf. "For the love of the Divines, Bryn, go after her!"

Brynjolf was already moving towards the door. The night chill fell around him like a cloak and he shivered as his eyes grew accustomed to the darkness. Then shadows became shapes and shapes became familiar, and he could see again. Mena was standing at the edge of the canal looking into the water.

He walked up behind her. She did not turn around.

"So you lied again, lass, when you told me why you couldn't bear to treat that skeever bite."

"Yes. I lied."

Even in the darkness he could see that she was shivering. He reached out and pulled her to him, dropping a fold of his cloak around her and holding her against him, she did not pull away and stood passive in his arms, her head resting against his shoulder.

They both remained silent for a long time. Brynjolf was the one who eventually broke the silence. "They asked all the wrong questions, didn't they?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Lass, they asked the Brotherhood if they had sent a boy, and the Brotherhood denied it. They never asked them if they had sent a girl. The Thieves Guild stated they had no boy of that age training with them, but never said anything about a girl. The only son that the king's daughter bore died in infancy. But did they ever ask if she'd borne a daughter?"

There was silence again. Mena's voice finally came, tired and sad.

"Yes. They asked the wrong questions."

And the two thieves watched the moon rise over the canals. Somehow it seemed that nothing more needed to be said.


	9. Chapter 9

In some ways, nothing really changed after that night. In other ways, everything had changed. Though it would be hard to put a finger on just how.

Riften settled to a pattern of quietly respectful behaviour towards the known members of the Thieves Guild. Part of that was doubtlessly linked to Jarl Maven's known Thieves Guild connections, and a feeling that upsetting Maven was not a healthy thing to do, but much of it was also down to the stories that filtered through of the recent Guild successes - Goldenglow, Whiterun, Markarth - the luck seemed to be changing and people perhaps thought it less sensible to challenge the Guild than it had once been. After all, the protection money wasn't exactly extortionate, and the peace of mind was perhaps worth more. Particularly after word got around about a pair of unlicenced thieves who thought they'd try their luck in Riften and had been picked up by the Guild less than an hour after their arrival. Maven had both men flogged publicly and then dumped at the horse and cart outside the city minus their clothes. Oh, and what they had stolen was returned safely to the owners, less a ten per cent finders fee. Nobody complained. Taxation had always been considered a form of legalised theft anyway. Riften just saw this in a more literal way than most.

Brynjolf was far from sure how much anyone had worked out from Mena's tale. Certainly Vex seemed to think it was a sad story but no more than that. Delvin might have had suspicions but kept them to himself. Tonilia was the only one who seemed to be watching Mena in a different way, but she was never very talkative so it was hard to know what she was thinking.

Mena was if anything more silent than ever after the night of the party. She ran the errands that Delvin and Vex set her, returned generally with good results, practiced her lockpicking with a dogged persistence and no great increase in skill, and retreated early to the alcove she had been assigned in the Flagon to sleep. The nightmares continued unabated. Herluin while an excellent alchemist did not have Philbert's light touch with sleeping draughts and his attempts to find medication for the Redguard's disturbed nights appeared less than successful. He was heard many times muttering that "it was just a question of working out the right dosage". Brynjolf was less than convinced.

It was Vex who first pointed out that music seemed to have a good effect on Mena's sleep, that while someone was singing in the Flagon, or Vekel had his flute out she slept without stirring. Delvin seemed amused when Brynjolf took to bringing his harp to the Flagon late at night when only a few people still lingered over the ale or mead, and he made the predictable jokes about lullabies and serenading one's lady-love. Brynjolf chose to ignore all of it. It was no great hardship after all to sit near the bar and produce a few verses of "Ragnar the Red" or something similar, a few people even sang along. And if in her alcove a tired girl curled under a blanket and slept without horrors for a while, lulled by the music and soft voices, then that was a bonus.

There was almost no comment made by anyone when Brynjolf started sleeping in another of the Flagon's alcoves. It wasn't like there was any shortage of space in either chamber, there was no very good reason why most people slept in the Cistern except for its proximity to the secret escape route, and the likelihood of actually needing the quick escape was probably less than it had ever been. As second in command Brynjolf could have claimed any of the semi-private alcoves at any time, he'd just never seen any good reason to. And it wasn't exactly fair that Tonilia who was the only other thief to sleep regularly in the Flagon should have sole responsibility for Mena's nightmares. So more often than not when the girl sat up in bed screaming in the small hours of the morning, it was Brynjolf who sat with her and calmed her back to slumber. At least it wasn't happening every night any more. But it was still happening far too often.

Brynjolf was all set for Mercer to make his own sarcastic comments when he arrived back in Riften late at night a couple of sevendays later, but Mercer said nothing. He dumped his bags in the Guildmaster's corner of the Cistern and then most uncharacteristically came to join the few late night drinkers in the Flagon, ordering mead for everyone present and sitting with his own cup tapping a rhythm on the table while Brynjolf played his way through "The Age of Aggression" and Vex and Tonilia finished a high stakes card game at the next table. As midnight approached, one by one the others made their excuses and left, and finally Brynjolf and Mercer were left as the sole occupants of the bar.

Brynjolf put the harp away and came over to sit opposite Mercer. Despite the Guildmaster's apparent affability earlier, Mercer's eyes were as cold as he had ever seen them, and there were shadows under them that spoke of little sleep in the past weeks.

Mercer finally spoke "Karliah's alive."

Brynjolf was a little too slow to control his expression and Mercer frowned. "You aren't surprised, Bryn. Why?"

"Well, after you left, Del showed me the daggers that Mena brought back from Whiterun." He explained about the named glass blades. "We couldn't be certain that they proved anything, but now it seems they do. What did you find?"

"Gulum-Ei was not in a hurry to talk to me, and I eventually tracked him down to a cave under the East Empire warehouse in Solitude. He had a lot of friends there too - bandits that the slimy little scum was paying a cut to for protection. But eventually we got to talk - and he told me who was paying him."

Brynjolf thumped the table. "That fool. That stupid little fool. How on earth did he ever think he was going to get away with it?"

"Because he was more afraid of Karliah than he was of us - with some reason." Mercer's face was shadowed and it was impossible to see his expression but the Guildmaster almost sounded amused. "He was never the bravest of Argonians at the best of times, and he probably didn't have the nerve to say no to her."

"You didn't kill him, did you?"

"No, but I made it abundantly clear what would happen to him if he so much as put a tail tip out of line again. And he told me where to find her."

That startled Brynjolf. "I'm amazed he knew."

"Well, he knew and he didn't. He told me that she'd made some sarcastic comment about being holed up "where the end began" and suddenly I knew where that was."

"More than I do."

"Oh come on, Bryn. Use your brains. Where did everything start to go wrong for us?"

"When she killed Gallus."

"Exactly. Gallus's murder was the beginning of the end for the Guild. And Karliah is in the place where she killed him. Snow Veil Sanctum, north of Windhelm"

Brynjolf shook his head. "Well, you aren't going after her alone. This one I'm coming with you. We've all got a score to settle there"

Mercer laid a hand on his arm. "Bryn, don't think I don't appreciate it. And face to face, sword and shield, you might be one of the few people in the Guild who would actually be Karliah's match. But this won't be face to face. I can guarantee she will have trapped the place at every turn, and she was one of the best archers we ever had. I've got to take someone who is both one of our top infiltrators, and also an archer, even if not as good as she is."

Brynjolf frowned. "Vex is still our best infiltrator, but Vex is only a mediocre archer, her skill's with throwing knives and that's not good enough against a longbow's range. Delvin's second to none in stealth, but he was never anywhere near as good as Karliah as an archer."

"So who do you suggest?"

"Don't laugh, Mercer. If I were you, I'd take Mena."

Mercer smiled. "Your Redguard protege again, Bryn?"

"Mercer, she's better than Delvin as an archer, she's even better than Rune. Del says her stealth is excellent out poaching. She managed Goldenglow when Vex couldn't. She won't get you through a tough lock there, but that you can do yourself. Del's only complaint about her is that she kills too easily, and I can't see you having a problem with that."

"Well, Bryn, I'd promised myself for years that I would be the one to settle scores finally with Karliah. But if your Mena puts an arrow through her first, I won't weep. Might curse a bit."

Mercer sounded almost happy. Brynjolf could not actually remember seeing him like this in years, it was clear just how much the murder of Gallus had preyed on him. He pushed the mead flagon over to Brynjolf. "Finish it, Bryn. And tomorrow, tell your Redguard lass I want her ready to leave before midday."

The following morning Mena accepted the briefing with her usual lack of emotion - after the one night at the party she had withdrawn even more than before. She asked a very few questions, most of which Brynjolf was unable to answer, then threw a few of her belongings into a carry sack and reported to Mercer.

Somehow Brynjolf, watching the pair of them leave was unable to shake a sense of foreboding. Perhaps it was simply an inability to believe that the whole saga of Karliah could ever be finished, it had reached a point where many members of the guild didn't even remember what it had been like before her betrayal.

Delvin slapped him on the back. "Cheer up, boss. They'll only be gone a few weeks, and then we can nail that Dark Elf bitch's hide over the door and lay Gallus's shade to rest."

"You've got a lot of faith in the pair of them." Vex commented.

"Vexy, she's got the archery, he's got twenty-five years of white hot hatred. If the pair of them can't carry this off, it can't be done."

Somehow what was meant as reassurance didn't sound like it, it seemed more of a dark prophecy, and Delven could hear it himself, he made the sign against the evil eye. "Shadow hide them both and Lady's favour go with them."

"Shadow hide them both indeed," Brynjolf added, and went to put the harp away in its case. Somehow it felt like nobody would have any heart for music, a silencing hand had been laid across the harp strings.


	10. Chapter 10

Somehow the market seemed populated by ghosts.

Brynjolf stood and hawked his bottles of Daedra Heart Elixir without any great degree of enthusiasm, his mind constantly drifting into the past. The elixir actually was selling rather well - Herluin had come up with a recipe that involved steeping a variety of herbs in good Nordic mead; dill and mint for digestive upsets, wormwood for parasites, willowbark for pain and a few crushed crimson rose petals to give it a good colour. The end result was deep red, pleasantly aromatic, and a lot of the buyers came back for more. Oh, it wasn't what it said on the bottles, but it wasn't going to actively do any harm, might even do a bit of good in a few cases, and the mead would make people feel better anyway. Sales were way up on what they used to be. Brynjolf had never asked Philbert what he put in his Falmer Ear Elixir and his Dragon's Blood Elixir, and all the other bottles of rubbish that had been sold from the stall over the years, they had all been pretty colours, smelled and tasted foul, and been universally useless. It had taken Herluin to point out that the best scams are the ones where the mark actually wants to come back for more.

_So many of us came from this market, one way or another. I was a skinny, knock-kneed boy with red hair who tried to slit the purse of a well dressed merchant and got caught - and then the man I had thought was a merchant hauled me round the corner by one ear and proceeded to give me the thrashing of my young life. Then when I'd finished howling in the gutter, he offered to teach me how to do it so that I wouldn't get caught the next time. That was my first introduction to Gallus, over thirty years ago, when he was the youngest Guildmaster that the Thieves Guild had ever had. None of us then could possibly have seen how things would go on from there._

The market ebbed and flowed around him. One man with worry lines on his face came to talk to him quietly and he frowned as he listened to the story - Sapphire had clearly been trying an unauthorised shakedown of her own, and he was going to have to give the girl a serious talking to. Again. Sapphire just didn't seem to get the message sometimes. He reassured the man, a Redguard who worked at the stables outside the city gates, and watched him walk away with a spring in his step that had not been there when he came. The sun glinting on the man's black hair gave it a fleeting illusion of gold and his mind slipped to Mena again.

_She was such a professional. Down to her fingertips. I saw her stalk in here like a dark mountain cat and already everyone in the market was in her sights, I saw her mind assess, discard, consider. The guards had already told me that she had spotted the shakedown at the gate where most travellers just accepted it. And when I approached her and offered her the little job to plant that ring on Brand-Shei she accepted with a nod - and then pulled it off with a finesse that Vex would have had trouble matching. She reminded me so much of someone else that day and even now I can't think who. But I remembered Gallus saying that the Redguard made the greatest thieves in the world, that the Shadow on their skins was a gift from the Lady, and the Lady didn't stint them on her other gifts either. _

He shook his head and hastily turned his attention to the Priestess of Kynareth who had just appeared for her own consignment of bottles, the woman had been buying the new recipe by the crate and they were barely keeping supply up with demand. Brynjolf assisted her to load the new bottles onto the little cart she was dragging behind her. He assumed it was being used for the hospice near the city wall, and a few old men and women were at least having their final days made a little more pleasant by it.

_Gallus never did make me more than a half-decent cutpurse, despite all his tuition. But he told me that I was one of the best cracksmen the Guild had ever had, that my touch on a lock was as light as cobweb and he'd yet to see me break a pick...oh, it was an exaggeration, but not by much. Old Marvess taught me the knife throwing, and Karliah made me an archer. Karliah. Damn the bloody woman, why on earth did she go and do what she did? Did she know she would destroy us all? Did she care?_

Trying not to think about Mena and Mercer wasn't working, it seemed his thoughts were being drawn back in that direction whatever he did. They'd been gone for two weeks, surely some word would have to come back soon. He stacked the last of the returned empty bottles into a crate and passed the crate to Rune who had come to collect the day's takings. Then he locked up the stall and wandered down to the canal, leaning over and watching the water swirl sluggishly under the steps.

_Twenty five years ago. Twenty five years, and I stood on these steps and listened to Mercer tell me about this job that Gallus had planned up near Windhelm. He'd been so cagey about the details apparently, only telling Mercer that they could double their take for the year on this one job alone. Mercer was already cynical then for all that he was so young, but he and Karliah and Gallus had been an unbeatable team for so long now that the cynicism was never taken very seriously by the rest of us, it was just seen as part of him. He was no older than I was, and we'd joined the Guild within a sevenday of each other, but within the first year he'd already been seen as a rising star, where I was a middle ranker, no better than average at anything other than lockpicking. They were talking about him even then as a Guildmaster in the making. And when he left to join Gallus and Karliah up at Snow Veil Sanctum, none of us could have possibly forseen what would come of it._

He tossed a pebble into the water, watching the ripples spread.

_Ripples. The ripples from that day became tidal waves that nearly tore us apart. Vex came and found me to tell me that Mercer had returned alone badly hurt. How old was she then? Ten? Eleven? Not a guild member then, just a snotty nosed street kid with an uncanny ability for knowing what was going on around Riften. Gallus had had an eye on her for ages, waiting for her to get old enough to recruit. I couldn't believe it, we'd never known the Gallus/Mercer/Karliah team to have a failure. And the news was worse than I could have possibly imagined. They'd indeed met outside the ruins, and from the shadows, Karliah shot Gallus in the back. He dropped like a stone, dead before his body hit the snow. Mercer had had time to turn and throw a dagger at her - and miss - and then the second arrow took him in the shoulder. He had managed to crawl into the bushes before passing out, the murdering bitch had poisoned the arrow with the Divines only knew what. He said the last he saw with blurring vision was Karliah dragging Gallus's body up to the hole at the top of the ruin and dumping it in, then he saw nothing but blackness. She must have assumed that whatever she had put on that arrow would finish Mercer off since she didn't look for him to cut his throat and make sure - either that or she was interrupted and had to make a run for it. But Mercer was stronger than the bitch though and he came round hours later with his blood staining the snow and somehow managed to crawl as far as the road to beg help from a carter taking supplies to Windhelm._

Another pebble followed the first.

_But it wasn't just Karliah who tore us apart. We did that to ourselves. When the news spread of Gallus's death, the factions formed and the infighting started. The Ratway became a bloodbath. By the time we came to our senses, she was long gone and unfindable. But she was always the best - there was nobody in the Guild who had ever been able to track Karliah - Gallus was the only one with a hope of it - and Gallus was dead. The only other one who might have been able to do it was that Redguard woman that they worked with sometimes from the Dark Brotherhood, she came closer to understanding them than anyone because their interests had collided so often. But when we tried to contact her through the Brotherhood they told us she'd returned to Hammerfell and they had no way of getting word to her. We were on our own. Mercer somehow held us together in the aftermath of the Ratway wars, those of us who were left. But the luck had gone with Gallus, over and over the little jobs that should have been our bread and butter turned foul on us. People started leaving. It's like those twenty-five years were just a slow dying, with none of us prepared to admit the guild was moribund. And then suddenly, this year, we get this plain-faced young woman from Hammerfell as a new recruit and the luck turns. No reason, no logic, just that it does._

There were running feet along the canal bank below him. He walked down the steps and was shocked to see that the runner was Delvin. This made no sense. Delvin rarely left the Guild in daylight hours other than on a job. Delvin never ran.

"Bryn, you've got to come quick."

"What's happened?"

The words were a horrific echo of a twenty five year old nightmare.

"It's Mercer. He's back. And he's badly hurt. And he's alone."


	11. Chapter 11

_He's alone_

Brynjolf and Delvin's feet echoed in the damp and slimy tunnels of the Ratway. The place was deserted. Not that any of the hangers-on would have given trouble to the second in command and third in command of the Thieves Guild anyway, but it was clear that they were being given a wide berth. Bad news gets around fast. Echoes of a disaster twenty five years gone rang in Brynjolf's ears.

_He's alone_

Brynjolf kicked open the door to the Flagon, sprinted across the bridge and through the door in the back closet that led to the Cistern. The Flagon was deserted as well. Abandoned mugs and jugs suggested that people had left in a hurry.

_He's alone_

The cluster of people near the Guildmaster's corner parted to let them through. Mercer was laid out on a mat on the floor, his face drained of colour, his eyes closed. Herluin was cutting the Guildmaster's leather jerkin off him with a small knife and hissing through his teeth at what he found under it. Mercer's trousers had already received the same treatment and a thin linen cloth was laid over his bare legs. Occasionally Herluin would look over his shoulder and bark an order at Vex who was laying out steaming cloths in a tray, soaked with some evil grey liquid which left a pungent reek in the back of the nose.

"When did he get back here?" Brynjolf skirted Herluin and stood by the desk, his eyes never leaving Mercer's face.

"Half a candlemark ago. He'd got as far as the entrance in the graveyard and collapsed. Rune carried him in here." It was Tonilia who answered, standing back in the shadows by the bookcase. She had a gold statue in her hands, a carefully crafted queen bee, and was turning it over and over in her fingers when she spoke. Brynjolf recognised it immediately, it was the one that Mena had lifted from Goldenglow. Delvin had purred when he saw it, and it had taken pride of place on the Cistern's shelves.

"Where's Mena?"

"Bryn, we've no idea. Mercer hasn't been conscious for more than a minute since he got here, and there was no sign of her."

He looked down at Mercer. "What happened to him?"

Herluin dumped the tattered remains of the leather jacket to one side, Mercer's shirt followed. "I'm still trying to work that out. He's a mass of wounds but they're almost all superficial. Several of them are infected, that's what the poultices are for." He laid one of the hot cloths on the shallow gash on Mercer's forearm. "But this pallor, and the laboured breathing - that's far more like poison of some type, and I haven't yet identified what it is."

_That bitch Karliah. Poison was always her signature, no arrow ever left her quiver without something vile on it. I should never have let him and Mena go alone. I knew what she was like, that Dark Elf murderess.. Mena was too inexperienced, Mercer was too blinded by hate. I should never have let them go alone._

Brynjolf sat down on the edge of a chair. "Is there anything I can do?"

"Keep the boiling water coming. I'm trying to brew a general remedy at present to hopefully counter the poison, but it'll be another half hour yet. And get everyone out from under my feet. I can't work like this." Herluin reached for another cloth.

Brynjolf looked to left and right. "You heard the man. Vex, Tonilia, you can stay, use the cooking cauldron for the water, it's bigger. Del, get the rest of these gawpers back to the Flagon and find them something useful to do. Teach them some bad card sharping or something. I'll call if anything changes."

As the area emptied of the onlookers, Herluin laid the last of the hot cloths on Mercer's shoulder and retreated to his alchemy brazier, stirring the pot that seethed on the fire. Mercer's eyes fluttered and his lips moved for a second.

"He's done that two or three times." Tonilia set the statue carefully back on the shelf. "Keeps trying to tell us something, but we can't make out what he's saying."

Brynjolf laid a hand on Mercer's. "Mercer, can you hear me?"

"I hear you." The words were the faintest thread of sound.

He sat down beside Mercer, leaning his head towards the other man. "Take it slow. You're home, you're among friends. Whisper. What happened?"

"The bitch was there all right." Amazingly Mercer's dry lips cracked into a mirthless smile. His voice was little more than a shadow amongst shadows and every word seemed an effort that ended in pained breath. "Knew it as soon as we got there - scouted the ruins and found her horse. I killed it. If she ran from us, I wasn't going to let her get away."

His words ended in a gasp and Herluin hurried back over, clutching a small beaker which he trickled drop by drop into Mercer's mouth. Mercer swallowed it painfully and his complaint was almost the old Mercer. "Talos, that tastes foul."

"It's to help with the pain. It will work fast but it will make you drowsy." Herluin fixed Brynjolf with a stare. "You are not to let him excite himself, do you hear me? You can talk to him for a few minutes, until the other potion is ready, and then he needs to sleep."

"I hear you." Brynjolf turned back to Mercer.

Mercer was speaking again. "The ruins...stank of death. Both old death and new. She'd locked and trapped the door - I got us past that one but she'd reset every trap within the ruins, and poisoned most of them. Mena spotted more than I did - she was a good girl, you were right about her..." His words trailed off into a fit of coughing.

_She was. Not she is, but she was..._

Brynjolf's voice was urgent. " What happened?"

"Bone chimes." The words were little more than a whisper. "Bone chimes to wake all the Draugr. If it hadn't been for Mena I would have been hard pressed, she shot down so many before they ever got to us. But both of us were wounded and bleeding by the time we made it to the puzzle door. I don't think Karliah ever expected us to make it a quarter that far - or to know the trick to get through the door without the claw key. But we got in there and she was waiting."

He groaned. "It was like seeing Gallus die all over again. Her arrow took Mena in the shoulder and she dropped without a sound. Dead before she hit the floor. I went for Karliah and suddenly Karliah wasn't there. She spoke just once. Said that she'd be a fool to face me and that I never learned... It had to be an invisibility ring, she had no time to take a potion. And I was alone with the dead."

Brynjolf swallowed against the lump that threatened to block his throat. "You're sure Mena was dead?"

"Bryn, her heart had stopped beating, she wasn't breathing, her face was ice cold. I thought of trying to drag her body to the surface but I would never have made it, whatever poison that bitch had put on the traps was already working on me. I don't know how I made it to the surface. I don't know how I got back here." Mercer's voice was weaker. "She'll pay. By every Divine, she'll pay."

His voice was trailing off and he stopped responding to questions. Herluin bustled over, trickled a second potion between his lips and then stared at Brynjolf. "Out. All of the rest of you, out. Don't even think of trying to get him to answer you further, when I've finished with him here he'll sleep for days and anything you may have planned can wait. Vengeance can wait. All of it can."

Brynjolf was only half aware of Vex leading him away, of the door closing behind them, of the chatter in the Flagon that silenced as they walked in. Not one person spoke. Not one person asked a question. Brynjolf's face clearly told the entire story without words. Delvin pushed a glass of spirit into his hand and laid a hand awkwardly on his shoulder for a moment.

He gulped the raw spirit, feeling it burn past the blockage in his throat and set up a small fire in the ice pit that had once been his stomach. He turned away from all of them, from the grief in Delvin's eyes, the pity in Vex's, the sympathy in Tonilia's. He couldn't deal with any of it. Not now. Not tonight.

He sat down in his own alcove in the far side of the Flagon, staring at the wall. Footsteps had followed him, but he didn't look up. Then he stood up and dragged a sack down from a high cupboard and started to fill it. Shoes. Clothing. A couple of small bags out of the chest.

"Where do you think you're going, Bryn?" The voice was Tonilia's. He'd known that anyway.

"Windhelm" His voice was without emotion.

Tonilia sighed and came over to him quietly. "Just what good do you think you can do?"

He turned to look at her. "You're Redguard. You heard the story she told, the night we had our party here. You know who she was."

Tonilia nodded. "I guessed. Even before she told that story that night, I wondered. Those grey eyes - most of you thought it was because she had a Nord father. But those eyes, that pale grey with the dark ring to the iris - they're called moonlight eyes in my tongue, and they run in the Taneth royal house. Have done for hundreds of years."

"Then you know why I'm going." His voice was as level and quiet as if he was speaking of trivialities. It might have fooled some people. It didn't fool Tonilia, he could see that on her face. " We never tried to find Gallus's body all those years ago, and that was shame enough then. After what Mena did for Hammerfell - and after what she did for us in the Guild, she deserves better than to lie unburied in the ice of an ancient tomb amongst the Draugr bones. I'm going to get her body out of Snow Veil Sanctum and send her to Sovngarde in fire. If anyone ever earned their place there, she did. Then her ashes can go back to Hammerfell, if I can find those Alik'r who knew her. To mingle with the desert sand, under the Dragon Wind."

Tonilia nodded and made a strange sign with her right hand. "Desert sand we are, and desert sand we shall be, and all our lives are written on that sand." Her voice was a sad chant with the echo of ghostly drums.

Brynjolf's soft baritone finished it. "But what is written on sand under the Dragon Wind is not forgotten."

She kissed his cheek. "Shadow hide you, Bryn, and Lady's Grace go with you."

He held her for one minute and then stepped away. Slinging the sack over his back he walked quietly to the door that led out to the Ratway, and it silently closed behind him.


	12. Chapter 12

_**"I stumbled to my feet**_

_**I rode past destruction in the ditches**_

_**With the stitches still mending beneath a heart-shaped tattoo**_

_**Renegade priests and treacherous young witches**_

_**Were handing out the flowers that I'd given to you."**_

_**Bob Dylan - Changing Of The Guard**_

* * *

><p>The journey to Windhelm was long and cold, colder than the trip to Whiterun had been, and the fact that Brynjolf was the sole passenger on the cart only underlined the emptiness of the seat beside him. On the few times that he dozed, cold and uncomfortable as the cart jerked over the frozen ruts in the road, it seemed that the ghost of Mena was riding with him, joking about the hard seats, asking questions about the mages of Winterhold, cursing the lockpicks that broke in her fingers. And then he would wake and stare at the empty seat, and her laughing ghost retreated to the shadows again, and he was alone.<p>

The long hike from Windhelm to Snow Veil Sanctum was more bearable because the constant need to watch out for wolves and bandits at least distracted the mind. Once Brynjolf even saw a dragon, a huge grey shape drifting on the morning wind far to the north, and echoes of its cry came faintly to him. It was at once the most menacing and the most beautiful thing he had ever seen, and he stood and watched it, mesmerised, not even nocking an arrow into the bow that he carried over his shoulder - after all, what would have been the point? Had the creature seen him and turned on him, what good would his arrows have been? But it seemed oblivious to his small shape on the snow and with a final cry it turned to the northeast and was lost in the glory of the rising sun.

Fresh drifts had fallen in the night before he reached Snow Veil Sanctum, burying his hide tent deep, he had slept warm but had to dig himself out in the morning, and had it not been for Mercer's old map which he had purloined from the ripped remnants of the man's jacket before leaving Riften he would have been lost more than once. As it was, he twice had to retrace his steps and cast around for the snow buried trail, and it was approaching the dusk of the third day since leaving Windhelm before the squat shape of the old barrow finally heaved itself into sight over a small hill.

The tattered remains of a camp site to the west of the barrow, hidden in the bare trees, might have been Mercer's camp or Karliah's originally; he was inclined to think the latter because there were bones and rags of hide that had clearly once belonged to a horse, and he recalled Mercer's comment about slaying Karliah's horse before entering the barrow. Wolves, and weather had destroyed what was left.

The door to the barrow was locked and had no obvious keyhole. He stood back for a moment, assessing the door, then started to feel delicately along the frame with the tips of his fingers - this sort of door often had a catch to release a hidden panel covering the keyhole.

When the voice came from over his shoulder a shock of ice ran down his spine.

"Who do you seek in the halls of the dead, son of Talos? She is not here."

He whirled, his daggers already in his hands. Superstitious as all Nords tended to be, he had the echoes in his mind of endless stories about ghosts that haunted the old barrows, and at first in the dusk and the light snow that had started to fall it seemed that a ghost had spoken indeed. And then the shadow under a pine tree detached itself from the tree and became an altogether mortal man. A Redguard, his head wrapped in the cloth turban that many of them favoured, his body draped in a heavy bearskin cloak.

"Who are you?" His voice seemed loud in his ears.

The Redguard made no move. "I am Kematu al'Hradi, of the Alik'r. And I am Heartbond to the Windlady Philomena."

It took Brynjolf a couple of seconds to recognise the longer form of Mena's name - they had all called her just Mena for so long. "What does that mean? Are you her kinsman? Her servant?"

"Both less and more." Kematu beckoned. "Come. There is a cave a little way to the west, we can speak there with fire and drink and out of this cursed snow. Then if you insist on fighting your way into the tomb to dance with the Draugr, I cannot stop you, but you will not find who you seek there."

He was already moving away, light footed in the snow and becoming hard to see in the gathering dusk. With a last glance at the door to the barrow Brynjolf hurried to follow him.

The cave was indeed not far, and the embers of the promised fire still glowed in the makeshift firepit. Kematu dropped sticks onto the fire and poured a cup of something from the jug that nestled beside the fire, pointedly drinking from it first before passing it to Brynjolf.

_As though he assumed I'd think it was poisoned. What does he think we are, here in Skyrim? Or what is the land like that he comes from, if this is how they think?_

Brynjolf sipped from the cup, the hot drink was spicy and plainly alcoholic, and reminded him of a sweet mulled mead with cinnamon but there were other herbs there too. It was very warming in the cold evening. "So, how do you know she is not there?"

"You ask the question that should be the last. The first question should be how I know that she lives."

_She lives._

The utter relief on his face must have told its own story because Kematu smiled. "I see that brings you joy. She told me about you, son of Talos, when we met outside Whiterun some weeks ago. She said you were one of the few decent men she had ever known."

"Decent?" His face twisted slightly. "Kematu, whatever she did or she didn't tell you about me, I am second in command of the Thieves Guild in Skyrim. I am a cracksman, a cutpurse, a liar and a thief. Decent is not a word many would use to describe me."

Kematu waved this self-assessment away with one hand. "None of that is news to me. I am Alik'r and we are a practical people. Many of the kings and queens of Hammerfell have been trained by the Thieves Guild, or by the Dark Brotherhood - theft and assassination have always been considered just two more tools of statecraft. A good ruler rarely has the luxury of being kind and pure and honorable. Whatever the stories tell, if he is all those things he is likely to end up swiftly dead at the hands of someone who is none of them. If he wishes to serve his people well, then that is not the way to do it."

Brynjolf raised his eyebrows at that. "So, I'll ask the question. How do you know that the lass lives?"

Kematu poured a second cup of the drink for himself. "I am of the Shadowed Stone tribe of the Great Desert, and we are the hereditary protectors of the House of the South Wind, the royal house of the city of Taneth. When a child of the royal house reaches the age of seven years, whether they are true-born or base-born they are brought to us for fostering, to learn the lessons that only the desert can teach. When Philomena was brought to us, she was placed with my father and mother, and she grew up among us as my younger sister, a kinswoman to be loved, teased, tormented and laughed with just as you might treat any younger sibling of your own. But when she reached the age of fourteen and was to go out from the tribe again, she was bonded to me by our magicians, a rite that is secret to us. From then on I was her Heartbond, and she was mine to protect, to watch over, and at the last need, to avenge."

Brynjolf found this description oddly disquieting. "It sounds like a marriage of sorts."

Kematu shook his head. "That it is not, and it can never be. I have my own wife amongst my tribe, and two strong sons. You asked if I was Philomena's servant or her kinsman and as I told you, I am both less and more. From when our mages bound me to her, I gained an awareness of her as she also has of me. As I stand here, I know she is far to the north of me, and I know she lives, the link that they placed between us tells me that. But it tells me nothing else. She could be well, sick, injured, unconscious, free, or a prisoner. All that this bond does is give me the means to find her."

"I thought she was dead. Mercer said she was dead."

The name was clearly known to Kematu. "He may believe it. There are drugs and poisons that can produce the appearance of death, and your Guildmaster himself was clearly under the influence of more than one poison when I helped him back to Riften."

"You helped him back?"

"Not the whole journey. I found him outside the city and got him as far as your back door in the graveyard. I assumed that if I dumped him there one of your people would deal with it."

Brynjolf shook his head. "That entry is supposed to be a secret."

Kematu laughed. "Then I can only hope that your guild's other skills are better than their ability to keep a secret. A child in Hammerfell could track your people in and out of there."

Brynjolf let that pass for now. "Did he tell you what had happened here?"

"He told me very little, he was poisoned, ill and light headed. He told me enough to give me an idea where to start my search. I knew then that she was not dead, no matter what he thought. Her pull was to the north. He did not tell me how to find this tomb, that I had to do for myself. Once I got here, I knew she was here no longer. I planned to uproot my camp tomorrow and head to the north, and then while I was scouting the area to get clues as to what happened here, you showed up. So, since it seems we have a common goal, perhaps you would tell me what more you know?"

Brynjolf sighed and passed his cup back to the other man. In a few terse sentences he summarised Mercer's story. "So if she lives," he finished, "she must be both injured and poisoned, and there is a high probability that she is the prisoner of Karliah. From Mercer's description, I cannot see any way that she could have left the ruins alone, and if Karliah has aided her, then it can be for no good reason."

Kematu shook his head. "Treachery follows Philomena like a lover. I was the one who disguised her as a boy when Taneth fell, and aided her to try to free her kinsfolk. Had the choice been mine, I would never have permitted her to do it, but she is my Heartbond, at the last she commands and I obey. She said that the treachery of the woman Iman could only be challenged by the honour of another woman. I carried her from that city again when all believed her dead, bound her wounds and forced a captured Thalmor wizard to heal her at knifepoint, his eyes blindfolded while he did it so he could not see her face. I bore her, step by painful step, to Hegathe and to the Thieves Guild there and gave her into their keeping, that escape route had been made ready many years before should any of the royal house need it. And then at her command I and my men hunted Iman through High Rock and the Summerset Isles and at last to Skyrim - and here the Windlady falls victim to another woman traitor. Some god somewhere is having a long laugh at our expense, it seems."

"You are sure she is north of here?"

"I am sure. North, and a little to the west."

Brynjolf frowned. "That means Winterhold. Why on earth would they have gone there?"

"I do not know. But if we follow them there, we may get some answers. Sleep here for tonight, Northman, and we will start with the dawn."

The two men wrapped themselves in hides and lay by the embers of the fire. Brynjolf had a final question. "Why do you call her by her full name? Everyone here always just called her Mena."

The Alik'r was almost invisible in the shadow of the cave but the amusement was clear in his voice. "Philomena always hated her name. She said that a philomel sang to rival the lark and she croaked like a raven, it was no name for her."

"What is a philomel?"

"A small bird, a ground nester. Brown in colour, and it sings mainly at night, a liquid song that has no equal. Do you not have them in Skyrim?"

"Aye, we do." Brynjolf's voice was thoughtful as they settled themselves to sleep. "We call that a nightingale."


	13. Chapter 13

The cold somehow didn't seem to matter quite as much as Kematu and Brynjolf made their way north towards Winterhold. For one thing, Brynjolf wasn't travelling alone any more. And he was travelling in hope, however fragile, rather than despair.

Kematu was not the most talkative of travelling companions, answering direct questions courteously enough but never volunteering much information of his own. Brynjolf could live with that, he had plenty to think about anyway.

The only conversation that Kematu initiated was by their night cooking fire, the evening before they reached Winterhold, and it started with a very innocuous comment about the Skyrim weather. The Redguard seemed firmly convinced that the climate of Skyrim was unfit for human habitation, and while the rabbit that Brynjolf had shot earlier cooked slowly on a spit over the embers, Kematu held his hands to the flames as though he could never get warm. "How do you people manage to live here, year after year?" he asked only half-jokingly, unwinding the wrappings that lined his boots. "Is there ever a time of the year when you feel warm?"

Brynjolf laughed. "Winterhold's called Winterhold for a reason, this whole north-eastern coast is one of the coldest parts of the country. But Riften itself rarely freezes even in the hardest of winters. I don't remember Mena ever seeming to feel the cold as you do, but maybe it's her Nord father's blood making her more hardy."

Kematu raised his eyebrows. "Is that what she told you? That she had a Nord father?"

Brynjolf eyed Kematu. "Aye. The lass mentioned it when she first came to the Guild. Was that a lie too?"

Kematu lifted the cooked rabbit off the spit and divided it in two with a knife. "I don't know if it's a lie, or whether Philomena herself doesn't actually know. But I spoke to her mother once, many years ago, while the girl was still fostered with my family. Philomena is correct that her father came from Skyrim, and her mother met him during the years she spent in this land, but from the little her mother told me about him I formed the strong impression that he was an Imperial, and not a Nord. But I have no idea what she told her daughter." He passed Brynjolf his share of the rabbit, and carved a slice from his own piece.

"I see." Brynjolf considered this. "It's not that it matters anyway, one way or the other. Mena clearly sees herself as Redguard, no matter what her father may or may not have been. What was her mother doing in Skyrim anyway? Do you know?"

Kematu took a bite of his rabbit haunch and shook his head. "I do know - but that is a question I am afraid you will have to ask Philomena, it is not my story to tell."

Brynjolf nodded. "Fair enough." The subject was dropped, at least for then.

The following morning when Brynjolf awoke Kematu was standing gazing into the distance to the north-west. "She - or they - have left Winterhold. The pull is more westerly."

"So what do we do now? Follow the lass direct, or go to Winterhold and see if we can find out where they were going?"

Kematu turned to him. "I think the latter. If we do not know how they are travelling, then we may just fall further and further behind. At least in Winterhold we can buy - or steal - two horses and attempt to make better time."

The argument made sense, and they continued their trudge through the snow, though Kematu kept glancing over his left shoulder every now and again as if his gaze was constantly being drawn to the west.

Winterhold was as bleak in the grey dawn light as Brynjolf remembered it, a snow-covered village of mostly derelict houses, with only the ubiquitous snowberry bushes producing a hint of colour in the blanket of snow. The light in the windows of the inn appeared the one hint of cheer and both men quickened their steps towards it.

Despite the name of the building - The Frozen Hearth - inside the inn there was a roaring fire, and even a young minstrel inexpertly plucking a lute in a half-hearted manner despite the early hour and the lack of patrons to listen. Brynjolf ordered bread and cheese and cups of mead from the bartender and gestured to Kematu to sit down in the corner. Kematu seemed restless. "Should we not be asking whether anyone here has seen Philomena, or your traitress Karliah? Or knows where they may have been going?"

He shook his head. "Kematu, trust me, unless he has changed beyond all recognition, I can guarantee to you that the one man in Winterhold who knows everything about everyone will be wandering in here within the hour."

Kematu shook his head, but he applied himself to his food, wincing as the minstrel hit another sour note.

True to Brynjolf's expectations, within half an hour a Bosmer man came through the door, shaking a light powdering of snow off his shoulders and on glancing around immediately fixed on Brynjolf. "Bryn? Bryn, what in the world are you doing up here? I thought that nothing would persuade you to come to Winterhold at this time of year short of the Guild being attacked by a dragon..." His voice trailed off as he saw Brynjolf's face. "It hasn't, has it?"

Brynjolf slid along the bench to make space for the other man to sit down. "No, no dragons. One traitor." He turned to Kematu. "Kematu, this is Enthir, of the College of Winterhold. Not technically a member of the Guild, but someone who's been very useful to us in the past. An old friend of our former guildmaster."

Enthir's face had clouded at Brynjolf's words. "I see." He annexed the remainder of Brynjolf's half eaten bread and cheese. "I take it you've come chasing that Redguard girl, then."

Brynjolf raised a hand to stop Kematu jumping into the conversation. "In a manner of speaking. You've seen her then?"

The innkeeper at that moment came over to the table. "Anything else I can get for you, gentlemen?"

Kematu counted coins out of his pouch. "Here. One silver for another plate of bread and cheese. A second silver for another jug of mead. And one silver for that minstrel to shut up before I wrap his lute strings around his throat."

The innkeeper barked a short laugh. "I'll tell him." He walked off.

Enthir eyed Kematu. "The lad isn't that bad."

Kematu raised his eyebrows. "Then I would not like to hear what in Skyrim you refer to as "bad" music."

The food and mead arrived. Brynjolf turned back to Enthir. "All right then. You've seen Mena."

"If that was her name. She never told me. She just said that Karliah had sent her."

"Karliah sent her?" Brynjolf was puzzled. "So that Dark Elf wasn't with her?"

"No. She came here alone."

"How did she look to you?"

Enthir looked puzzled. "I'm not sure what you mean. Thin, ill, rather pale, but she's fair skinned for a Redguard. She didn't seem to be under the influence of any form of magic, if that's what you mean."

It wasn't exactly what Brynjolf had meant but he let it go. "What did she say to you?"

"Well, she told me Karliah had sent her, and she wanted a translation of the book she had with her."

"What book?"

Enthir looked at Brynjolf. "A journal. Written by your late Guildmaster and my friend. Gallus Desidenius." He sighed. "Gallus. Always too clever for his own good. The book was written in Falmer, the language of the Snow Elves. Probably no more than a handful of people in the whole of Skyrim would be able to translate it, and I certainly wasn't one of them. Gallus was planning a heist twenty five years ago that required the knowledge of the language. I sent your girl on to the same person that I sent Gallus to, all those years ago. Calcelmo, the court wizard of Markarth."

"Falmer?" Brynjolf looked puzzled. "Why on earth would he...oh, never mind. At least we know where we have to go on to."

Kematu made a more practical inquiry. "From where in this town can we get good horses?"

Enthir laughed. "My friend, this is Winterhold. Have you even looked around the town? The only horses here are those few kept by that horse dealer near the main road, and a sorrier selection of spavined nags it would be hard to find anywhere in the country. There was one decent horse in the town, and that one belonged to the Jarl. Jet black, built for speed, no more than four years old."

Brynjolf looked curious. "You say that the horse "belonged" to the Jarl? What happened to it?"

Enthir laughed. "Well, somebody stole it last night. So I think you can work out what your Redguard girl is probably riding to Markarth on."

"That lass..." Brynjolf shook his head. "Thanks for the help anyway, Enthir."

"Not a problem, Bryn." Enthir took a bite of his bread and cheese. "Something else you ought to know though."

"What?"

"Well, when your girl told me that Karliah had sent her, I asked why Karliah hadn't come herself. It's not like the Guild have much of a presence in Winterhold, or even that anyone here would recognise her. The answer was that Karliah said she had an old job still unfinished, down in the south."

Brynjolf sprang to his feet. "That bitch...She's going directly after the Guild in Riften. She's got Mercer down, her attempts to break us up with Maven have failed, and now she's got me out of Riften. Del and Vex don't know her like I do, they won't be ready for what she'll try."

"Calm down, Bryn. From what little the Redguard girl told me, she was going to meet with Karliah again on the way to Markarth. No matter what Karliah plans, if you set off for Riften now, you'll be back there before she is. At least your people will be warned."

Brynjolf looked at Kematu. "If I head for Riften, can you follow Mena to Markarth? Is there a limit to how far you sense her?"

"Half a mile or half a country, it makes little difference." The Alik'r stood up. "Come. We will get the best of the horses remaining and make what speed we can. I will get word to you when I find her."

As they headed for the door, the tall Redguard man turned to the minstrel, who was sulking in a corner. "My friend, you may return to your lute now." The musician's scowl burned a hole in their backs until they had left the room.

The horses that the dealer was selling were indeed as bad as Enthir had described, rough coated, bony and dispirited. Most of them were lame to a greater or lesser degree. In the end they negotiated the purchase of the only one that didn't look like it was going to drop dead within a sevenday, an elderly chestnut gelding with one eye and a scarred mouth. It at least seemed vaguely sound when trotted up. The dealer wanted probably twice what the horse was worth and wasn't about to negotiate. In the end they paid it.

"I'll take the cart back to Riften," Brynjold told Kematu. "You take the horse. You'll make better speed cross-country to Markarth, on the Riften road it's likely to be no better than the cart would have been."

He stared into the distance for a minute. "What I don't understand is why Mena is helping Karliah. All right, she didn't know Karliah like we did, but she must know Karliah's no friend to any of us. Karliah even shot her, for the Divines' sake, I don't know how she's still alive. I don't understand any of it."

Kematu laid a hand on his shoulder for a minute before vaulting to the back of the horse. "My friend, I will find her. Then we will know. Go home to your people and prepare them for war. For it seems the war is coming."

"Talos guard you," Brynjolf said, and watched horse and rider disappear into the snowy distance before making his own way to the cart.


	14. Chapter 14

"Where's Mercer?"

Brynjolf stormed into the Ragged Flagon from the Ratway, dropping his bag unheeded on the floor near Herluin's alcove. The few late night drinkers span in their seats to look at him. He supposed he probably was a bit of a sight - soaked to the skin with the filthy late winter sleet that had fallen relentlessly on the last leg of his journey back to Riften, his lank red hair plastered to his head with a mixture of rainwater and dirt. He didn't care.

"Bryn," Vex started, extending a hand towards this soaking apparition that had just arrived, "for the Eight's sake come to the fire. You look half frozen."

He ignored her. "Delvin, where's Mercer? We've got bigger trouble on our hands than we've had in the last twenty years."

"Bryn, Mercer's gone."

"What do you mean he's gone?"

Delvin kicked a chair in Brynjolf's direction. "Two days after you left for Windhelm. He was weak as a kitten, and Herluin threatened to knock him out with a chair leg to keep him on his pallet. The threat didn't work. When he found out you'd gone off after Karliah he called you every name under the sun, and "idiot" was about the most polite thing he said. Then he went after you. He said Karliah had killed enough of this guild and he wasn't having her catching up with you as well."

"Bryn, tell us what's happened," Tonilia put in.

He looked over his shoulder at Tonilia as she spoke. "You want the good news? Mena's alive. And the bad news? Karliah's also alive. Karliah's got some sort of control over Mena. And Karliah's coming back to Riften to finish what she started - the destruction of the Thieves Guild. And this time she isn't going for any subtleties. No plots to discredit us with Maven, no tricks. This will be direct. She always preferred to sneak, and lie, and plot, but at the last she was a killer, through and through."

"Bryn," Delvin put in, "she's a bitch, and a traitor, and a murderess, but she is one woman. Don't make this into more than it is, boss. If we know she's coming, we can deal with it. She won't take any of us unawares this time."

"Delvin, you didn't know her like I did. None of you did. Don't even start to think of her as "just one woman" because this is "just one woman" who killed a Guildmaster, nearly killed another one, and brought the Guild to its knees not once but twice, firstly in the Ratway wars and secondly in the recent manipulations of our dealings with Maven. This is the woman with the greatest and deepest knowledge of poisons of anyone we've had in the Guild in living memory - and that's another thing. Have any gifts arrived in recent days? Anything we weren't expecting?"

Delvin looked at Vekel. "Well, there was that cask of mead that the Black Briars sent down as a bonus for a job well done at Whiterun."

"And did any of you check that it actually came from them?"

Delvin was shaking his head. "No, we didn't. Why should we?"

Brynjolf shook his head in response. "Rune, to Maven BlackBriar now. Guild's compliments and our thanks for the cask of mead. Do it. And if they don't know anything about it, put an axe through the cask and dump it in the Cistern."

Delvin's face was bereft. "Brynjolf, that's a whole cask of BlackBriar Reserve!"

"And if it didn't come from Maven, then that's enough to poison the whole Guild. Actually, forget dumping it in the Cistern, if they don't know anything about it I want Herluin to test a sample and see what else may be in it."

As Rune slipped out of the door that left to the Ratway, Vex sat down beside Brynjolf. "Bryn, you really think it's this serious? That she'd murder everyone in the place for the sake of twenty five year old revenge?"

He looked at her. "Vex, I truly think she's capable of anything. We've got to lock this place down the way we did when the Ratway wars were raging. One entrance, one exit, guards at both, challenge-and-answer passwords. I've had proof in the last weeks that our exit in the cemetary was never as secret as we would have liked to believe, and it was no secret from Karliah anyway. From here on, that is an exit only. Anyone coming in does so from the Ratway tunnels. Anyone going out does so from the Cistern to the churchyard, and all the comings and goings have to be kept to a minimum."

Vex was nodding. "What about the door to the Ratway Vaults?"

"Lock and bar it. Warn that old guy Esbern that he won't be able to get in that way - he hardly ever comes to us anyway - then barricade it from our side."

The faces surrounding him were identically grim, but at least there did not appear to be any voices of dissent. His urgency was infecting even the most cynical. He turned back to Delvin. "Del, those old wards that Philbert set in the Ratway, all those years ago - could they be reactivated? Would Herluin be able to do it?"

"I'm sure he could, boss, it just needs a few drops of blood and a simple spell. But don't you remember why Mercer had them deactivated? They used to get set off every time a skeever ran over one, and we were turning out of our beds five or six times a night for the constant false alarms."

"True. All right, get him to reactivate three - the two on the approach to the Flagon and the one in the graveyard at the foot of the steps. And if we get a few false alarms off them then that's just too bad."

He looked around the Flagon. "And everything in here moves into the Cistern. Nobody sleeps in here any more, nothing is left here at night. We're going to have one room to defend. Get Herluin's stuff out of his alcove and move it back to Philbert's corner of the Cistern, if he doesn't like it, that's just too bad. Get the casks from the Flagon in there too. We need to be prepared for a siege. And the old underwater tunnel in the Cistern - get it cleared too and barred from this side. I know it hasn't been used for years. We haven't needed it for years. Well, all that might just have changed."

He sat down beside the fire at last as the bustling began around him. Vex pushed a cup of ale at him. "All right, Bryn, you can take five minutes and drink this. I'll get Vekel to get some hot water so you can get cleaned up. Karliah won't show up in the next five minutes."

He looked at her. "You think I'm overreacting, don't you?"

Vex shook her head. "You think this is necessary. You knew her. I didn't. So I'll believe you. Won't kill us all to be crammed into the Cistern like one cozy little family for a week or so."

He watched Rune and Dirge carrying Herluin's alchemy table through the passage at the back of the storage closet, accompanied by Herluin, grumbling all the way. Tonilia followed them with an armful of her own belongings. He made a move as if to stand up. "I ought to get my own alcove cleared."

"I'll do it." Vex stood up. "I'll get Mena's things as well. Mena...why on earth would she be helping Karliah?"

"I just don't know, Vex. I really don't know"

He drank his ale slowly as the fire finally thawed the cold that had settled in the very marrow of his bones. The room was quieter now, most people had gone into the Cistern. Vekel had taken most of the tables from the Flagon through as well, so presumably some informal drinking corner was being set up in there.

When Vex shook his shoulder he awoke with a start, his hands reaching for his daggers. Her voice calmed him. "Easy, Bryn, it's just me. You were dozing. When was the last time you had a good meal and a decent sleep?"

He reckoned on his fingers. "Three or four days ago."

"No wonder you look like something the cat dragged in. There's hot water in the big cauldron now, and privacy in the back alcove in the Cistern. Go have a bath."

"Is everything moved?"

"Everything is moved. Everyone is warned now, who's in the Guild or working out in Riften. The few people who aren't accounted for will just find the back door locked and have to work their way round through the Ratway, they won't know the new passwords but people can be sent out to identify them. Challenge at the Ratway passage is "Night music?" and the answer is "Shadow." Challenge at the Cistern door is "Before Dawn?" and the answer is "Lady." Rune's back home, and Maven did indeed send that cask so Delven says we're going to break into it, once you don't stink like a ice wolf's dungpile."

"Delvin's always so thoughtful" Brynjolf struggled to his feet.

"I put your stuff in the Guildmaster's corner, Bryn. Mercer won't mind you taking residence there till he gets back. I just wish that there was some way we could get word to him. But if he went after you, and you never saw any sign of him going or coming, then I have no idea how we can find him."

"We're just going to have to cope. At least nothing she does is going to take us by surprise now."

Vex put a packet into his hand. "I found this amongst Mena's things. It's addressed to you, so I thought you ought to have it. See you in the Cistern. I'll get Delvin to start mulling some of that mead."

As the door closed behind Vex, the stillness of the Flagon seemed utterly wrong. This was the hub of the Guild, normally alive with bustle, laughter, tears, curses, stories. Now the only sound was the occasional scratching of small rodents deep in the walls, and the drip of condensation off the roof.

He looked down at the paper in his hand. It was a thick sheet of vellum, many times folded, and sealed with a large blob of red wax. The thief sign for memory was carved into the wax. He turned it over, and the words on the other side were clearly inscribed in a graceful hand, slanting to the left. He couldn't remember if he had ever seen Mena's handwriting before.

"_**For Brynjolf, to be given to him after my death."**_

Had she had some premonition of her own end before leaving with Mercer? He reached for the fine dagger that he used to lift seals invisibly then paused.

This letter was addressed to him. There was no reason why he should not just break the seal and read what was inside, there was no need to lift a seal in such a manner. Why had it been his first thought? To look inside as though trespassing?

_Because you are trespassing _came the unwelcome thought from what vestiges of a conscience remained to him. _She lives. Whatever she wrote in this letter is not written to you, it is written to a man mourning her. You have no right to trample upon that ground._

He stood there in indecision and then stuffed the letter into his breast pocket and went to find the bath and the drink. He had never needed either more.

Two days passed, three days, four. The Guild settled into its more restricted quarters and its more ordered life. No rumours were circulating around Riften about the changes, Brynjolf had threatened dire retribution to anyone who opened their mouth and the threat had clearly been taken seriously. Jobs were taken and completed. Rune ran the stall in the market and sales seemed much as usual. Brynjolf never left the Cistern. He monitored the reports that the thieves brought back with them, and the fragments of news.

And then on the fourth night, he woke in the small hours of the morning with Delvin shaking him awake.

"Boss, someone's bypassed the Ratway wards. Herluin tagged them so if anyone deactivated them, he'd know. They're both out."

He struggled to his feet, reaching for his weapons. "No chance they could just have failed?"

"No. They've been taken out."

"Pull the guards in the Flagon back in here. Now"

As Delvin vanished, Tonilia appeared. Without speaking, she helped him on with his leather armour as if he was a knight and she his squire.

"Is everyone else in?" he asked her.

"They're all in. Only one not accounted for is Mercer, and there's nothing we can do about that."

As Delvin and the two thieves who had been on guard duty reappeared, Brynjolf gestured to the passage leading to the cemetery. "Both of you, just inside there with bows, arrows trained on the ladder." He looked around at the other thieves who were watching him. "The rest of you, take bows and find whatever cover you can in here. If she's coming in, she'll most likely come through the Flagon, I want that door covered by half a dozen archers. And one last thing. Mena may well be with her. None of you fire, unless I give the order. None. Do you hear me?"

There was a muttered chorus of acquiescence and people scattered to various vantage points. Brynjolf stood on the bridge over the Cistern. He felt rather than saw Vex come to stand on his right, Delvin on his left.

Time seemed to crawl.

"This is crazy, boss."

"Shut up, Delvin."

Time crawled even slower.

"Shouldn't we keep at least a couple of archers in the Flagon?"

"Shut up, Vex."

And then the rap came at the door. Rune gave the challenge.

"Before dawn?"

The voice that answered it was one that Brynjolf had not heard in twenty five years.

"Before dawn, the nightingale sings"

Rune sent a panicked look at Brynjolf. Brynjolf raised his voice. "Karliah, why have you come?"

The answer came from a second woman's voice. Mena's.

"Because you don't understand. None of you do."

Brynjolf took a deep breath. "Lay down your weapons at the door. Come in with your hands empty. Archers are trained upon you, seen or unseen. Do not advance more than two steps past the door."

The door opened slowly. The shapes of the two women were indistinct at first, then they advanced into the light. Karliah was hooded and little could be seen of her except her violet eyes. Mena's face was thinner than he had seen it, her cheekbone bruised, and her grey eyes blank, full of sorrow. They advanced the two paces that he had permitted and stopped.

He wanted so much to go to her, to pull her into his arms, to scold her like a child for the grief and fear that he had known. Instead he made his voice as harsh as he was able. "Lass, you'd better have a damned good reason for coming here with that murderess."

And then time seemed to freeze as a crossbow bolt hummed past his ear. It came from behind him, missed him by inches, and embedded itself in the wall by Mena's head.


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's note - the text that Karliah reads that is reproduced here in bold italics is the book "Nightingales - Fact or Fiction" and can be found in game.**

* * *

><p>"Stand down!" Brynjolf's bellow echoed from the vaulted roof as he whirled, seeking the unseen assailant.<p>

Fast as Brynjolf moved, Delvin was faster. He took a leap towards the Guildmaster's corner and had the errant archer pinned with his arms behind his back. Brynjolf took two strides and backhanded the man across the mouth with a force that sent him sprawling to the damp stones, spitting blood. "You stupid, stupid little fool. What in the name of Nocturnal did you bloody well think you were doing?"

The man opened his mouth to say something and Delvin kicked him. "Don't even try to answer that. You've already made things bad enough for yourself tonight."

_Etienne Rarnis. _Brynjolf's mind filled in the name. _Breton. One of Mercer's proteges. Only been with us about a year. And isn't going to be with us another year if this is how he obeys orders._

He kicked the man's crossbow over the edge of the Cistern. "You can go diving for that later. In the mean time, get out of my sight."

Karliah's voice came over his shoulder, quietly amused. "He's getting off lightly. In Gallus's day it would have been a dozen lashes for disobeying a direct order, and a dozen more for the sloppy marksmanship since he missed both of us. Always assuming he wasn't trying to shoot you in the back, Brynjolf."

Ignoring Etienne who seemed to be trying to crawl into the shadows Brynjolf walked slowly back to the bridge. "Why have you come, Karliah?"

The Dark Elf put her hood back. "Because I have proof that you've all been misled."

"No tricks, Karliah, or I'll cut you down where you stand." His sword was pointing at her throat. "You were a consummate liar in all the years I knew you - why should any of us believe you now?"

Slowly, painfully slowly, Karliah reached a hand into her cloak, making every movement as unthreatening as possible. She showed him a book, placing it on the floor in front of her and stepping backwards. "I have Gallus's journal. This translation was done by Enthir of Winterhold, and he attests on the first page that the book he translated was in Gallus's handwriting and had other secret codes confirming the authorship."

Without moving, Brynjolf gestured to Vex to pick the book up and bring it to him. Vex's face was set in a snarl and her parting shot was "Don't think this will stop me tearing you limb from limb, Karliah."

When Brynjolf opened the book and started to read it, the words hit like hammer blows. He shook his head. "This can't be true, I've known Mercer too long."

"Mercer Frey has been stealing from this guild for years." That was Mena, the first time she had spoken since entering the room.

The diary was impossible to believe, impossible to ignore. "Del, I need you to open the vault."

Delvin's bewilderment was clear in his voice. "Just a blessed moment, Bryn - what does it say in that book?"

He turned to face Delvin. "It says that Mercer was stealing from the vault for years. Gallus was looking into it before he was murdered."

Delvin shook his head. "It's impossible, the vault needs two keys. Could he pick his way in?"

Vex was shaking her head now. "The door has the best puzzle locks that money can buy. There's no way it can be picked open."

Almost ignored, Karliah's soft voice answered. "He didn't need to pick the lock."

Delvin gave Karliah a disgusted look. "What's she on about?"

Brynjolf slipped the diary inside his leather breastplate. "Del, use your key on the vault. We'll open it and find the truth."

The thieves fanned out around the two men as they walked towards the door to the vault. Brynjolf sensed rather than saw that Tonilia and Vekel had not lowered their bows and still had Karliah covered, but everyone else seemed just to be watching. Delvin took an intricate key out of his pocket and turned it in the first lock. "I've used my key, but it's still locked tighter than a drum. Now you use yours."

The keyhole was stiff and it took some easing before the key would turn. With coaxing the tumblers fell and the door slowly fell open.

Somehow Brynjolf had known what they were going to find. The open chests, the empty sacks. The legacy of thieves dead long before he was born. Gone, taken in an act of total betrayal that he could still only half believe.

"It's gone. Everything's gone. Get in here, all of you."

Delvin's mouth was hanging open. "The gold, the jewels, it's all gone!"

Vex had her knives in her hands, her fists clenched around the hilts in fury. "That son of a bitch, I'll kill him."

Brynjolf struck her wrists down with the flat of his hand. "Vex, put them away, Right now. We can't afford to lose our heads. He's long gone, and we've got a puzzle to put together."

Delvin was nodding. "Listen to him."

With a sigh, Vex sheathed the daggers. "Fine, we do it your way. For now."

Still only half believing what he saw, he beckoned to Delvin. "Del, Vex, get people into the Flagon. Mercer isn't going to be reappearing any time soon, but you can set a guard there. Leave two on the back door to the graveyard. Forget the passwords. Mercer isn't coming back. Not if he's done this."

Vex was still in a seething rage and Delvin had to tug at her arm twice before she followed him. Her parting comment, "If I see Frey I'll pluck his eyes from his skull with my bare hands," drifted back over her shoulder. The room cleared, leaving Brynjolf alone with Karliah and Mena.

He closed the lid on one of the empty trunks and sat on it, gesturing to the other two to do the same. "Go on, Mena. You'd better tell me the rest now."

Mena's voice was quiet. "Firstly, Mercer killed Gallus, not Karliah."

Brynjolf shook his head, but in grief, not denial. "Aye, I feared that was the case. The last entry in the diary looked like he was going to expose Mercer."

"He was." Karliah's eyes were full of a grief twenty five years old and as raw as the day it was inflicted. "We underestimated Mercer. Gallus, Raven, me, we all did."

"Raven?"

"You knew Raven, Bryn, though possibly not by that name. She was Dark Brotherhood and we worked with her many times. We took her with us on that last journey to try to see Mercer brought to justice, and at the end of it Gallus was dead, Raven survived only by chance and the Brotherhood's intervention, and I was on the run, with all of you believing me guilty of murder."

There was no resentment in her voice. "I didn't blame you, any of you. The evidence all pointed one way, it was my word against Mercer's and I knew full well which one of us you would all believe. It was run or die - and I ran."

"I would have done the same." Brynjolf looked at Karliah. "Go on, you might as well tell me the rest now. How on earth did Mercer manage what he did here? There is no way into this vault without two keys. None. And he had only one."

Karliah laughed, an odd sound echoing through the empty room. "Can I persuade you to sit there for a few minutes and listen to a fairy tale?"

He raised his eyebrows. "If you think it's necessary."

Karliah murmured something to Mena who stood up and left the room, returning with a battered book in her hands which she passed to the Dunmer. He recognised it instantly, it had lain on a shelf in the Cistern for years, unread except by the odd thief confined to the Cistern by illness or injury and desperate for some relief of boredom. Karliah showed him the cover where the words "Nightingales - Fact or Fiction" were embossed in faded gold on the spine, then she began to read in a quiet voice.

_**Mention the "Nightingale" to any thief worth his salt and he'll laugh in your face. He'll tell you that the supposed avengers of the Daedric Lord Nocturnal are nothing but fictional characters who live nowhere else but within tales designed to scare young footpads into doing what they're told. But are they fictional or simply misunderstood?**_

_**While it's true that most scholars would scoff at the notion of a holy sect appearing within the normally unethical and unorganized rabble that is the Thieves Guild, evidence suggests that such a group existed at one time within the borders of Skyrim. One hundred and twenty years before the publication of this tome, a corpse was discovered wearing a strange suit of armor that was described as "forged midnight." The tattered armor bore a crest of some sort, the symbol of a bird embracing a circle of undetailed blackness. The remains and the armor was taken to the College of Winterhold for study, but mysteriously vanished only a day after it arrived.**_

_**The crest from this armor was circulated around Skyrim for years but identification proved almost impossible. Then the most unlikely of sources, a prisoner incarcerated within the mines of Markarth, claimed that it was the mark of a group of thieves who called themselves the Nightingales. When pressed for more information, the prisoner claimed that the Nightingales were warriors of Nocturnal and performed her bidding without question. He claimed his source was someone he knew within the Thieves Guild of Skyrim, but he refused to identify them by name, so his story was quickly dismissed.**_

_**The second piece of evidence pointing to the existence of the Nightingales exists to this day just outside of Riften. Discovered at the terminus of a short pathway off of the main road stands a stone of unidentified blackened material. Carved into its face is the same avian symbol previously found on the dark suit of armor. To those that subscribed to the existence of the Nightingales, this was thought to be some sort of a meeting place. To others, this symbol was once again dismissed as a hoax or simply a diversion created by the Thieves Guild.**_

_**The final, and most controversial sample of evidence is a passage found scrawled on the inside of a cell wall in Whiterun. The cell had previously been occupied by a Dunmer named Lorthus was incarcerated for murder and was set for execution. After the deed was performed, and Lorthus's cell was examined, the following was found etched into one of the stone blocks:**_

_**"Take my hand Lady Nocturnal, for it's my will to serve you. As a Nightingale, I'm born anew. Let my past echo our triumph."**_

_**This is the first and only time that a solid connection between Nocturnal and the Nightingale has been made. The unusual nature of the passage, the religious connotations towards Nocturnal made by a career criminal, kept discussions lively for years regarding the possibility of this group actually existing. Sadly, since not a single piece of evidence beyond this has surfaced to date, this exciting discovery faded into obscurity and the debate subsided.**_

_**With these scant samples of evidence, conclusions are difficult to formulate. All we're left with are more questions than answers. Can religion and thievery coexist? Does the Daedric Lord Nocturnal have active agents roaming Skyrim with a no-doubt nefarious purpose? Does the Thieves Guild have extensive knowledge of the Nightingales, but remain sworn to secrecy? Perhaps one day the answers to these questions will be revealed, but at present it falls to you, the reader, to decide whether the Nightingales are fact or merely fiction.**_

She closed the book. "Brynjolf, if you have ever wondered about the answer to that question, then your curiosity ends today. The Nightingales are fact. And Gallus, Mercer and I were - and are - Nightingales."

His voice was thoughtful but not contradictory. "I always thought they were a tale, a way to keep the young footpads in line."

"We are no tale. We are the last in a long line of those who have borne that name, and there will be no more after us unless we find a way to undo Mercer Frey's treachery. In answer to your earlier question - he got in here because he's a Nightingale - and that's all I can tell you for now. There's so much we're sworn to secrecy on, and even now when I can't bring myself to face Nocturnal, I still cannot disobey the oath I swore."

Mena spoke. "When Karliah told all this to me. I said to her that thieves and temples didn't seem to mix. She told me that she was as disbelieving as we are now when Gallus first recruited her."

Brynjolf needed to talk to Mena without Karliah looking on, there were still so many unanswered questions but they were going to have to wait. All of them. This betrayal had to come first.

He looked around the empty room. "Mercer hasn't just stolen the gold and jewels from past glories here. He's stolen all our futures. This room had plans that Gallus had made for future heists, details for jobs many years into the future. He's got them all. We've got to track down where he's gone. Delvin told me he'd gone after me when I left for Windhelm, clearly that wasn't the case. But he could have left Riften in any direction. We need more information."

"How do you propose to get that?" Mena sounded curious.

His lips drew back from his teeth in a mirthless smile. "Oh come on, lass. We're thieves. We'll start the way that most of our plans start. With a burglary."


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's note - the translation of Gallus's journal is taken straight from the game, and the only alteration I have made to it is to take out a reference in it that suggests Snow Veil Sanctum is less than an hour from Riften. This makes no sense whatsoever based on other in game probable distances, so I've allowed myself a bit of author's licence here.**

* * *

><p>After some debate, Vex was given the job.<p>

Well, the fact remained that if what you wanted was a straight infiltation-and-lift, with no fuss or frills and preferably no deaths, she was the best they had. Breaking into a Guildmaster's house though was definitely a first for her.

"Rift Weald Manor," Brynjolf explained to the others, "was a gift to Mercer from Maven Black-Briar, for unspecified services rendered."

Delvin snorted with laughter though his face was grim. "And not those kind of services. Not unless he had his eyes shut through the whole thing and his mind firmly on other things."

"Pack it in, Del. Anyway, he's never lived there in the years he's had the place, he just hired a lout to guard it and paid the upkeep. And it's the last place in Skyrim I'd want to send any of you, because you can guarantee it'll be a mass of traps from floor to ceiling. But if he's left any clues at all to where he's gone, then that'll be where they are.

Vex had asked a few questions about approaches, wrinkled her nose at the name of the "lout" who guarded the front door, requested a small amount of money to grease some palms and then disappeared. So far she'd been gone for six hours, and the rest of the Guild was going about its business and trying very hard to pretend that this was just another day. Which of course it wasn't.

The guild members seemed to have no idea how to treat Karliah, and were solving the problem by simply giving her a wide berth and mostly trying to pretend she wasn't there. Karliah seemed amused by this. She had moved into the alcove of the Flagon that had been hers twenty five years before, and was spending most of her time reading through boxes of old documents brought out of cupboards in the Cistern at her request. At least she hadn't requested the use of an alchemy table. Brynjolf would have had no idea how to respond, and she and Herluin probably would have had the battle of the decade over it. And Brynjolf would have bet that Herluin wouldn't win.

Mena had moved her own belongings back to the Flagon and seemed to be trying to make herself as invisible as possible. Delvin had talked to her once since she returned and reported afterwards to Brynjolf. "She isn't well. Of that I'm certain, boss. She can't move her shoulders without pain and she's eating next to nothing. I suggested that she talked to Herluin and got a very polite brush off. You try. She won't listen to me."

Whether or not she was going to listen to Brynjolf either was something else, but later that day when the Flagon was all but deserted and Karliah had slipped out on some errand of her own, he walked quietly into Mena's alcove and sat down on the chest that served her as storage, seat and writing desk. "Time you told me the rest of it, lass."

She was sitting on the bed and looked up at him with such haunted eyes that he caught his breath. He remembered Enthir saying she looked pale and ill when he saw her at Winterhold and he would have agreed with the man's assessment - there had never been much colour in her copper-skinned cheeks but now they had the pallor of old yellowed parchment and there were deep shadows under her eyes that had not been there when she and Mercer left the guild all those weeks ago. "I don't know what you want to know."

"All of it." His voice was kind but firm. "There's been too much damage done already in this guild with the endless secrets and lies. And you've lied as much as any of them, lass. I'm sure you did it for your own good reasons but the time for the secrets is long past. Would it help if I told you I've met Kematu and had several long conversations with him?"

She did smile at that. "That much I knew. Kematu caught up with us outside Markarth. Just as well that he did, we'd probably never have managed the things we had to do to get the information off Calcelmo otherwise."

"He's a good man."

"He is. He has been my older brother in every sense of the word but shared blood since I was seven years old." There was a soft lilt in her voice that was the nearest that Brynjolf had ever heard to affection in anything she had said. And it was absurd that he should feel something approaching jealousy at that affection - she owed him nothing. Nothing except the respect due from a junior member of the Guild to the acting Guildmaster, and even naming himself as such in his mind made him wince. He'd never wanted the rank, and now it had landed in his lap, even if hopefully not for long. The Divines only knew what configuration the Guild would finally be in when it all shook down. If it ever did.

Brynjolf put aside the thoughts and asked another question. "Lass, what really happened at Snow Veil Sanctum? I've heard Mercer's version and it was clearly a pack of lies, he said that Karliah killed you and then wounded him."

She actually smiled at that. "Well, there's some half truth there. Karliah did indeed shoot me. What Mercer didn't tell you was that he'd knifed me in the back first."

"He'd done what?"

"I'm not sure why you sound so surprised. You know now that Mercer wouldn't willingly have left a living witness."

He shook his head. "Why did Karliah shoot you?"

She stood up and he could see that the effort made her wince. "Karliah had spent years creating a poison that she intended to use on Mercer if she ever saw him again. It produced paralysis, then unconsciousness, then the appearance of death, slowing the heartbeat to the minimum needed to preserve life. After all her work, she only had enough of it to poison one arrow. When she saw Mercer strike me down, she had a split second choice to go on with her plan, to let me die and take Mercer alive, or to shoot me, trusting to her own ability to get the arrow in somewhere that wouldn't kill me but that would get the poison into my veins and slow my heart enough to stop me bleeding out before she could get me out of the ruins and cauterise the wound. She chose to save my life, but it meant that Mercer got away."

His gaze fell to her shoulder. "Take that shirt off. I want to see what he did to you."

She hesitated and he fixed her with the sternest gaze that he could muster. "It wasn't a request, lass. Do it."

Reluctantly she slipped the linen shirt over her shoulders and turned, displaying her back to him. She was painfully thin, and the wound that Mercer had inflicted was a blackened, ugly, half healed gash high up on the left side of her rib cage. He stood up. "Lie down on the bed. I'm getting Herluin to take a look at this."

Herluin's first response to Mena's condition was in Breton, and from what Brynjolf knew of the language was thoroughly unrepeatable in polite company. He did a swift examination and then shook his head. "Stay there, girl. I'm going to make a poultice for that, and also a potion to help with the blood you've lost. You're lucky to be alive."

He bustled off. Mena lay face down on the bed, her face turned to the wall. Brynjolf had another question. "Did you get to read the translation of Gallus's journal?"

He himself had the journal in his pocket, in the day and night since the two women had arrived at the guild he had read it so many times that he could have recited it from memory.

_**"Mercer Frey continues to elude my every step. I think he's aware I'm following him, and appears to be taking no unnecessary chances. I'm bringing all of my skills to the forefront in order to deceive him. It still pains me that the deception is necessary. When I became a Nightingale, using my newfound talents against my own was the furthest thought from my mind.**_

_**There was a close call today. I was settling down for a night's rest in the Cistern when Mercer Frey entered unexpectedly. He was creeping along the wall, but I spotted him immediately. He edged closer to the vault door, making his way carefully around the perimeter of the room, but suddenly stopped and turned towards my hiding place. I froze instantly, even holding my breath for a moment, but my position was already compromised. He abruptly turned and walked back towards the Flagon. What was he doing? At last I have a piece of evidence that might explain Mercer Frey's actions. Instead of trying to follow him or break into his Manor, I used every loose-tongued source at my disposal to scour the Ratway looking for answers.**_

_**It took several weeks but Maul was able to provide an interesting bit of information. Mercer had been spending inordinately large sums of coin on all manner of things unrelated to the Guild. How he was able to afford this was a mystery to me. The vault was impregnable, so what was the source of his coin?**_

_**It's been confirmed by my sources Mercer's been living an unduly lavish lifestyle replete with spending vast amounts of gold on personal pleasures. I have more than my share of evidence to confront him now. He must be stealing from the Guild, but, without proof, all I have is baseless accusation. Mercer came from wealthy stock, but the amount of coin he's been spending is immense.**_

_**I've been giving it some serious thought. There's only a single way that Mercer could have access to vast amounts of coin. I hesitate to even believe it's possible. How could he possibly desecrate the Twilight Sepulcher? The goes far beyond mere greed, and transcends common theft. His actions could represent the failure of the Nightingales! Something that hasn't occured in hundreds of years. Why? Why would he readily throw away everything he believes in? All I need is proof.**_

_**Mercer Frey has requested I meet him at Snow Veil Sanctum. He sent a note by courier, so I can only assume he's already there. All my senses tell me it's a trap, but I have no choice. His message indicated the meeting was of the utmost urgency, and involved Guild business, so I'm obligated to go. I can't risk bringing anyone else with me, but I'm almost certain Karliah will disobey and follow." **_

Mena nodded, still facing away from him. "I've read it. Karliah said that Gallus did indeed try to slip away from her and she caught up with him before he ever left Riften. In the end they delayed two nights so that Raven could join them and then set out for Snow Veil Sanctum together. And he was right that taking anyone else with him was risky to the point of folly, but she was right too - if she hadn't been there, then there would never have been a living witness to Mercer's treachery. He would have escaped free, and the Guild would never have known what he had done."

"I still can't get my head round all the business about the Nightingales. It's like suddenly seeing the fairies from my grandmother's stories walking round a room, it feels like it shouldn't be possible."

Herluin appeared at that moment with a steaming cup which he sternly watched Mena drink, then he made her lie face down on the bed again. Ignoring her occasional whimpers of pain he scrubbed the clots of dried blood and half healing scabs from the knife wound and laid a stinging grey poultice on it, from the smell Brynjolf could tell it was the same as the ones he had used on Mercer. "Keep that there for an hour. It should draw any remaining rubbish out of the gash and then I'll stitch it up properly. You are very lucky it did not get infected, young lady. If it had, we probably wouldn't be having this conversation."

Mena acknowledged this with a silent nod. Herluin glared at Brynjolf. "And you're to make sure she doesn't get off that bed."

As the alchemist made his way out of the alcove, Delvin reappeared. "Boss, Vex is back."

"Tell her to come down here. You can come back as well, and Tonilia. Nobody else. We don't need to advertise this all round the Guild. Is Karliah back yet?"

"She is, boss. Do you want her here too?"

"I wouldn't know how to stop her if I didn't."

"Point taken, boss."

Delvin disappeared again, to return a few minutes later with the others. Vex was covered from head to foot in dust and dirt, but she had a blazing smile of triumph on her face. And in her hands was a map.


	17. Chapter 17

"You mean the stupid bugger just left the map sitting out on his desk?" Delvin was eyeing the parchment in Vex's hands with disbelief.

Vex smacked him on the arm. "Oh yes. Right in the front room with a flag pinned into it saying Steal Me." She snorted. "No of course he didn't Delvin. It was sitting on his desk all right, but in his basement office, and he really didn't intend anyone to ever get a look at his office. I worked out that the basement was about half the size that it should have been for a house that size, poked around and found a false back in a wardrobe. He'd linked the basement to a closed off section of the Ratway tunnels, and he'd trapped them with just about everything he could think of. Tripwires, poison darts, swinging axes - I'm amazed he didn't set a few bone chimes and install some Draugr, everything else was there."

"All right." Brynjolf studied the parchment. "It's a map. But what is it a map of? Looks like an old Falmer ruin somewhere but there's no name"

Karliah stretched out a hand for the map. After a moment's hesitation, Brynjolf passed it to her. She studied it for a moment and shook her head. "I know where this is. And the annotations on this are in Gallus's hand. Mercer's going after the Eyes of the Falmer."

"And what in the name of Oblivion are the Eyes of the Falmer, lass?"

"It's a heist that Gallus was planning, many years ago. The same one that he needed a translation of the Falmer language for." Karliah sounded tired and grieved. "If he gets those, then he can ask any money he likes for them, and the murdering bastard can live like a king to the end of his days. They're massive gemstone eyes on a statue deep in an old Falmer ruin. Gallus made two previous attempts on the place, one on his own and one with Mercer and myself. Both failed. Mercer obviously thinks he knows better now - and if he manages it, he's free, rich, and he's got away with murder. Both literally and figuratively."

"Where's the ruin?"

"Irkngthand" She pushed aside the map of the ruins and drew a sketch of Skyrim itself with a fragment of charcoal on a scrap of hide, pointing to an area deep in the mountains. "I could find the ruins themselves if I had to, but we never got far inside."

Vex stabbed her dagger into the table. "We can't just let him get away with this."

"We won't, lass." Brynjolf pointedly pulled the dagger out and handed it back to her. "Now, you and Delvin go and get the rest of the Guild off doing something constructive. I need to talk to Karliah alone, and Mena needs peace and quiet for Herluin to work. "

As the others walked away he heard Delvin say "So, Vexy, find anything else in the old sod's house while you were there?" and Vex's reply "You bet I did. Take a look at this," and then both were out of earshot.

He turned back to Karliah to find her watching him with an odd sorrow in her eyes. "All right, Karliah. You've got some more bad news, haven't you?"

She nodded. "Let Herluin finish with Mena first, and let me finish what I was reading. Meet me in a couple of hours in the Cistern back chamber, and I'll tell you both the rest. None of it is going to make you happy."

"Well, that sounds about right for everything else that's happened here, lass." Out of the corner of his eye he could see Herluin hovering with a tray in his hands. "Go on. Do what you need to do. Mena and I will be there."

The next half hour was bloody, messy and painful, but at the end of it Mena had a neatly sutured wound in her shoulder instead of a ragged hole, and Brynjolf had scores in his hand where she had clung so tightly to him while Herluin stitched that her nails had cut into his skin. She had never uttered a sound beyond a whimper at any point in the whole time. At last Herluin tied off the last knot and smeared the stitches with a green ointment, then bound her shoulder with a wide soft bandage covering half her back. "Keep that bandage on for a week, then the stitches can come out. And try not to do anything that will make you pull them out by accident?" He didn't wait for an answer as he bustled off.

Mena studied the nail marks she had left in Brynjolf's hand. "I'm sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry for, lass." He helped her to her feet. "Now, let's get you a cup of mead and then see what Karliah wanted to tell us."

Karliah was waiting for them, alone in the small back room of the Cistern that was used mainly for training. She had drawn three chairs into a small triangle in a corner and motioned to them to take the other two. The other thieves seemed to be giving the room a wide berth - whether that was simply because they were all still avoiding Karliah, or whether they had been given a more direct warning was something Brynjolf wasn't sure about, but he took the chair that gave him a view of the door.

Mena took the other chair. Karliah looked at her. "Well, you're moving more easily than you were. Herluin seems to be something of a find, Bryn. Philbert wasn't bad as a healer, but Herluin seems a lot better."

Brynjolf looked at her almost affectionately. "Karliah, you haven't changed. Twenty five years ago, Gallus used to say that he always knew when you didn't want to talk about something, it was the only time you ever came out with any small talk. Why not just cut to the chase and tell us what we need to know?"

She sighed. "All right. Mercer has betrayed the Guild - that you knew already. But what you didn't know is how deeply - and that he's betrayed every thief in the world, not just those in Skyrim."

"How so?"

"Well, did you have any theory at all about how Mercer got into the vault?"

He shook his head. "Not really. He was always good with locks, but that would have taken more than just skill. That lock just can't open with only one key. To get in there alone would have required the Skeleton Key itself, and I simply don't think..." His voice trailed off as he saw Karliah's face. "Oh no. I don't believe it..."

"Believe it." Her voice was harsh. "The Skeleton Key is no legend. And he has it."

Echoing in his ears were the words that he had so lightly said to Mena on the way to Whiterun all those weeks ago. "An old legend, lass. Basically, it's what you're asking for. A lockpick that cannot be broken, cannot break a lock no matter how inept the cracksman, and opens a magical or a mundane lock with equal ease. Unfortunately according to the legend it is the property of the Mistress of Shadows, or whatever name you give her in Hammerfel - Delvin always calls her the Dark Lady, or just the Lady. And also according to the legends it turns up every so often, ends up in the hands of a hero, and promptly seems to get lost again. So I wouldn't hold your breath waiting to see if you ever find it."

He realised he had repeated it out loud and Karliah was nodding. "The Skeleton Key is all of those things - and more. Much, much more. "

"Now, hold on lass. So he's got the Skeleton Key - and that's how he robbed us. But how does that affect any thieves other than we poor fools here that he took in for so long?"

"Because the Skeleton Key is not just some magical lockpick. By stealing it, he has destroyed the channel that every thief has with Nocturnal. You know that tiny edge that comes from nowhere and turns a failing theft into a wild success? The moment that the night watchman turns away from you in the shadows, the second when the last tumbler that wouldn't move suddenly comes free? Those are the Dark Lady's gift to her thieves, and without that connection the luck turns. Delvin wasn't wrong when he said the guild had been cursed. But he never realised that the curse had been caused by one of your own."

Brynjolf's voice had an edge of anger. "Lass, this is all well beyond me, but I'll ask you this. Did Mercer know what he was doing? Or did he just think to gain an advantage for himself?"

"He knew." Karliah's voice was bitter. "Mercer had been a Nightingale for longer than I. His knowledge of the Lady's power was probably the greatest of the three of us. He is Breton and they are always superstitious, but more than that - they have magic innate in them and not just the arcane magic of the College of Winterhold. Nocturnal's power is older and darker than that - Daedric magic - and Mercer was a careful student. Gallus feared what Mercer would do if he ever understood fully what he was capable of. The only thing that held Mercer back from his full powers was his greed, and it is ironic that his greed was what led to this greatest of betrayals."

"He dies for this." Brynjolf's voice was cold.

"He dies," Karliah agreed.

"So what do we do?" Mena spoke for the first time.

Karliah looked at the two thieves. "We have to recreate the Nightingales. And I will tell you now, that Gallus and I tried to do this once before, and we failed."

"What is it that we need to do?"

"You need to meet me in the hour before dawn at the standing stone with Nocturnal's symbol, just outside Riften. We are already past dusk, and the hour after dusk and the hour before dawn are when Nocturnal's powers are strongest, the "time between times" when all doors are open. Nocturnal is the sibling of Azura according to Daedric lore and Azura is the Lady of Dusk and Dawn, she is the gatekeeper for her dark sister. Bryn, you know where the stone is, don't you?"

"I do, lass."

Karliah nodded. "It marks the entrance to Nightingale Hall. I will get you in there and appeal to Nocturnal to recognise you both in the places of Gallus and Mercer. Without the power of the Nightingales our chances going up against Mercer are slim to none. We proved that last time."

"Why did you fail last time?"

"I don't know. Gallus and I took Raven and presented her to Nocturnal, and the Dark Lady wouldn't even speak to us. I do not know why. We speculated that the third place had to be held by a Thief, and Raven was Dark Brotherhood, not Thieves Guild, but that didn't seem to make sense. Gallus said that there had been warriors and assassins who had been Nightingales before. But in the end we had to chase Mercer with only the powers already within us - and they were not enough. The strength of the Nightingales is in the trinity, and the trinity has not been restored for twenty five years."

She turned to leave, and then turned back. "Oh, one last thing. The warning that Gallus gave to Raven, before we left for Nightingale Hall all those years ago. Nocturnal's magic is moon magic, and moon magic makes evil use of virgin blood. Don't gamble that this is something Mercer wouldn't realise. In the unlikely event that either of you is still a virgin - then by dawn, don't be."

And with that stark warning, she turned on her heel and was gone.


	18. Chapter 18

_**Author's note - the song that Brynjolf sings is a modified version of a 17th century English song called "The North Country Maid" and it was quite scary how little it needed altering to fit Skyrim :)**_

Brynjolf stared after the departing figure of Karliah. "Well, that's a nice way to end a conversation, with a bucket of cold water like that. Still as she said, it's not likely to be a problem for either of us."

It was Mena's silence that gave the lie to the words. He turned back to look at her, the expression in her eyes was that of a wounded animal brought to bay by the hunters. "You mean you are, lass?"

A silent nod of the head was all the reply he got.

He deliberately made his voice light. "Well, it's your lucky night, lass. You get to go out into Riften, find a nice young man and spend the next few hours breaking every rule that your mother gave you..."

She was shaking her head, but her eyes weren't fixed on him, they were unseeing, a denial of some horror that she had witnessed in another time and another place. And then he shook his own head as memories washed over him.

_Oh I'm a fool. An utter fool. She as good as told me, all those months ago when I sat beside her and made that tired old joke about treating your lock like your lover, caresses rather than force. And she nodded and made that comment about knowing the theory but not having had much practice. I knew even then it wasn't just the lock she was talking about._

He had seen her once before like this, the day that they had done the Goldenglow job and she had been so afraid of burning out the skeever bite. Shaking, staring at nothing, then vomiting at the smell of burning flesh. And she had lied to him when he had asked her what was wrong. Had told him that she couldn't remember.

_Oh, she remembered all right. Night after night those memories came to her. How old was she when Taneth was destroyed by the Dominion? Fourteen? Fifteen? It doesn't take much imagination to know what happens when a city falls to a pitiless enemy. She told us, the night we had the party. "The Dominion chose to make an example of Taneth, in the hopes that it would terrify the rest of Hammerfell into submission. The executions took place day and night, and no mercy was shown to any. Men who had participated in the city's defence writhed on crosses or screamed in the fires. Women and children were taken as slaves if they were lucky. If they were not lucky...well. You don't want to know that part of the story."_

_For us it was a tragic story. For her it was a memory. I never questioned why she had been clothed as a boy when she went to take that blade to her condemned kindred, if I'd thought anything it might have been that the blonde hair, so unusual in a Redguard, would have given her away otherwise. I never thought about the simpler reason. That Kematu, unable to dissuade her had insisted on disguising her as a boy in the hope of saving her from rape. And clearly it was no idle precaution, and she was indeed spared that. But she wasn't spared the sight of what happened to other women in that city._

_No wonder Vex said that we thought of her as a girl, not a woman. Time froze for her when Taneth fell, she's in her middle twenties now and she has no more experience of what is between a man and a woman than she had on those terror-stricken nights in the dying city. She's a young girl still, a girl who has seen too many horrors._

He made his voice as matter of fact as he could. "Stay there, lass. I'm going to get you a cup of brandy."

When he walked out into the main part of the Cistern he suddenly became aware of how late it was. The few thieves there were sleeping, even the corner that Vekel had set up as impromptu drinking quarters was deserted. Delvin was sprawled on the bed near the cauldron, snoring loudly. A glance showed him that most of the casks had already been moved back to the Flagon. Rune sat on guard by the ladder to the graveyard and nodded to him as he passed.

_Just as well Delvin's asleep. If he got one inkling of the conversation we just had, he'd make some bad joke or even worse offer to Mena, and I'm not sure if she'd finally lose her mind or whether she'd just knife him. Who the hell do we have here of the men who is near her age and I can trust? Rune won't, I know that, he doesn't go with women. Etienne was closest to her in age but he's done a runner, I haven't seen him since the fool let off that bolt when Karliah showed up. I doubt he'll be showing his face again round here in a long time and Divines only know where he's gone._

The door to the Flagon was ajar and natural caution made him palm a dagger as he slipped through it, even now it felt like they were defending their home against an unseen assailant. He wondered just how long it would take them all to get back to normal. If they ever did. But the Flagon was deserted too, and still very bare even with the casks returned and stacked waiting to go back to their normal places.

He slipped behind the bar to identify which of the leather bottles held brandy and to pour some into a cup. Setting the cup down for a minute on a nearby table, his eye was caught by a cloth-wrapped object on a shelf, and he took it down.

_My harp. I thought I'd taken it into the Cistern when we moved everything, but clearly I hadn't. I haven't played it since the day that Mercer and Mena left for Snow Veil Sanctum. Was that really only a few weeks ago? Somehow it seems like half a lifetime._

He took the harp out of its wrappings, running a hand gently along the sound board, the wood polished by the caresses of so many hands before his. He couldn't remember where he had stolen it from in the first place, it might have been on that early job that Gallus sent him on, to steal documents from the Bards' College in Solitude, but he had a feeling that he had had it before that. So many years ago, so many thefts.

"Play something for me."

The words came quietly from over his shoulder and he turned. Mena was standing by the table near the walkway where Vex usually sat. The haunted look was still in her eyes but the stark animal terror was gone, the expression on her face was far more like that of a young thief taken up by a Guildmaster for some misdemeanour and determined to endure punishment silently.

He pushed the cup of brandy towards her. "What do you want me to play, lass?"

She looked thoughtful. "There was a song that my mother used to sing to me when I was a child, before I went to the desert tribes. If I hummed the tune, do you think you would recognise it? I believe the song came from Skyrim."

"I can try, lass." He sat down on a stool beside her. "How does it go?"

She hummed a few bars of a plaintive air. "I can't remember the words, but the chorus had something to do with snowberries, I think."

The tune was familiar, as it would have been to anyone growing up in Skyrim. "I know it. It's called "The North Country Lass." But I haven't played it in years, so you'll have to forgive me a few sour notes." He began to pick the notes out slowly, the words coming back to him as the tune grew in strength.

"A North Country lass to the Southlands did pass,

Although with her nature it did not agree.

She wept and she sighed, and so bitterly she cried,

"How I wish once again in the North I could be!

Oh the oak and the ash, and the crimson snowberry,

They flourish at home in my own country."

Mena had come to sit on the floor beside him as he played, he could see her blonde head bowed over her hands as she listened to him. Her shoulder rested against his leg and he could feel her shake as she raised the cup to her lips and sipped the brandy from it, the tremors of unshed tears. He could not remember if he had ever seen her cry. Even that night of the party with her whole body rigid with grief as he held her, she had not cried.

"While sadly I roam I regret my dear home,

Where lads and young lasses hunt deer in the snow

The eagles soar high in the ice blue mountain sky

And the rivers run clear in the valleys below

Oh the oak and the ash, and the crimson snowberry,

They flourish at home in my own country."

How much had Mena's mother made Skyrim her home? She had clearly been in the land long enough to find a lover to her liking, to learn the songs that the bards carried round the land; she had been homesick enough for the Northlands to sing this song to her small daughter. Just what had her mother been doing in Skyrim anyway? He knew it was a question he wouldn't ask, and if he asked, Mena probably wouldn't tell him.

"No doubt, did I please, I could marry with ease,

For where maidens are fair many lovers will come,

But the man whom I wed must be North Country bred,

And carry me back to my North Country home.

Oh the oak and the ash, and the crimson snowberry,

They flourish at home in my own country."

He drew out the final notes and then let them fade away on the air. The Flagon was silent. Quietly he let the harp rest in his lap, laying one hand lightly on the strings. Mena had set the empty cup aside. Almost without thought he dropped his hand down to stroke a stray lock of her hair back behind her ear, she stiffened slightly at the caress but did not pull away from him.

When she spoke, her question surprised him. "I left a letter here when I went with Mercer. Did you ever find it?"

"I did, lass. I didn't read it though." He took the letter out of his breast pocket, the seal still intact.

She looked up at him for the first time. "Break the seal now and read it."

He looked at her for a minute. "If that's what you want, lass." He slid a thumbnail under the seal and split it and unfolded the parchment.

_**Brynjolf**_

_**If you're reading this, then I'm dead. If you're reading this when I suspect you'll be reading this, then I'm dead by treachery. I knew that when I got the orders to leave the Guild with Mercer Frey. I have never trusted Mercer, and I know that you always did. I can only hope that you are right and I was wrong. But if you're reading this now, then I don't think I was wrong.**_

_**Don't grieve for me. I knew the risks and I chose to take them, and if the gamble didn't pay off then that was as the Dark Lady willed it, we are all in her hands. I only wanted to write this to tell you a few things that I would never have had the courage to say to your face while I lived. That your kindness and your gentleness and your unfailing good humour have made these weeks with the Guild in Skyrim an unexpected light in the darkness, and I have treasured it. The Guild here became a family to me in a way that the Hegathe guild never were. Delvin's bawdy jokes, Vex's prickly comments, Tonilia's quiet support, all of you came to mean more to me than I have ever thought possible. But you became more than any of them.**_

_**We Redguard say that the Alikr Desert is our hammer, a hammer that shapes us into the sword blades that we become just as a smith shapes metal on an anvil. The desert, and the war, and so many other things shaped me but they also maimed me. In becoming the sword of vengeance for my people I became less than a woman, the side of me that might have laughed, and loved, and taken all the joys that womanhood brings was frozen. I never regretted it. I never even wondered what it might have been like to live differently.**_

_**Futile and foolish to dwell on what might have been. But now that it is over, I only want you to know this. That if I could have loved someone, it would have been you. That if I could have trusted someone, it would have been you. That for the first and only time since my fourteenth year, I looked at you and wondered what life might have been like had I not been who I was. I want to thank you for these weeks at least, whatever might have been or might have not have been.**_

_**Shadow hide you and Lady's Grace go with you**_

_**Mena**_

Shaken to his core by the words he looked up at her, now standing beside him, and that was when she kissed him. It was clumsy and inexpert and she was shaking as she kissed him, he could taste salt on her lips and realised that at last she was crying, soundlessly. He held her to him and kissed her as gently and as thoroughly as he knew how to, and mentally cursed the vicious necessity that was forcing something that should have had all the time, and joy, and laughter in the world. But at least now he knew her heart.

His words were muffled against her lips. "Lass, I'm a middle aged thief, no handsome prince, and you could have done so much better."

"I didn't want anyone else." Her words were barely more than a whisper. "I didn't trust anyone else."

"There have been many women in my life before, lass. Companions for a night, or a sevenday, or a month. We took joy in each other for a time, and parted without regrets and without recriminations. Love...love wasn't something that came into it. I didn't know the meaning of it. I'm not sure that I do even now. But when I thought you dead, lass, it was a knife in my heart. I don't know if that's love. But I don't have a better name for it."

She finally broke the embrace with a shiver and looked up at him. "Where can we go? There is nowhere in this place that is private."

"Ah, you're wrong there, lass. There is one place..."

And so it was that finally they piled up a bed of stolen wolf skins in the centre of the ravaged vault, surrounded by broken locks, empty chests and memories of betrayal. And it was there that with all the patience and gentleness of touch that had made him a great thief, he taught her those lessons that a woman learns from a man in darkness, and received from her the strength that a man draws from the arms of a woman in those hours before a battle is joined.

Before the dawn the room lay empty and open to the grey light, and nothing remained there but memories.


	19. Chapter 19

_**"She wakes him up**_

_**Forty-eight hours later, the sun is breaking**_

_**Near broken chains, mountain laurel and rolling rocks**_

_**She's begging to know what measures he now will be taking**_

_**He's pulling her down and she's clutching on to his long golden locks"**_

**Bob Dylan - Changing of the Guards**

* * *

><p>Brynjolf sent Mena out of the Guild alone an hour before dawn.<p>

He hadn't exactly planned to do that, but they had dozed and woken a few times, curled in their makeshift nest of wolf furs, and Mena had slept with no dreams. When they finally woke for the last time in the predawn he realised that whatever happened that day he needed to talk to Vex or Delvin alone before he left. However unreal this had all become, the fact remained that it was indeed real, that they were about to throw themselves on the mercy of a Daedric Lord with no promises of any good outcome, and one way or another he couldn't leave the Guild without some plan in case he didn't come back.

It was made easier by the fact that at some point in the night Delvin had clearly taken over from Rune as the guard to the ladder, and was watching them both as they left the vault. He said nothing as Mena climbed the ladder except a gruff "Shadow hide you" as the trapdoor closed behind her.

Brynjolf sat down beside Delvin. The Breton studied his face, then cocked a thumb at the closed vault door. "You and her?" It was a straight question, with no hint of Del's usual bawdy humour.

Brynjolf nodded. Delvin shook his head slightly. "You make sure you treat her right, Bryn. Or I'll come after you." The words could have been one of Del's bad jokes if it hadn't been for his grim face.

There were a dozen responses that Brynjolf could have made. He settled for the simplest one. "I will, Del. That's a promise"

"Mind you do." Delvin's voice was still gruff, but the harsh edge was gone. "So, what is it that you're going to do?"

He explained Karliah's plan as simply as he could. Oddly this was something easier to tell Delvin than it would have been to tell Vex, Del's basic superstition could accept it more readily than Vex's sarcastic disbelief. The other man was nodding slowly as Brynjolf finished his story. "You're risking more than your life, you know. You're risking your very soul."

"I know." Brynjolf studied his hands. "But when all the tunnels are blocked, the skeever faces the hunter."

Delvin gave a snort of laughter at that. "Well, they don't call this the Ratway for nothing. Go and do what you need to, Bryn. We'll be here, we'll hold this together. Once it's done, will you be coming back here before you go after Mercer?"

"I'll try to. One way or another this will be over before dawn."

"Right, off you go." Delvin stood up and pulled the chain to open the trapdoor again. "Hope the Dark Lady's feeling kind to her little fledglings today."

Brynjolf met up with Mena just outside the Riften gate and the two of them picked their way down the overgrown path that followed the city wall. It was a route rarely trodden by anyone except a very occasional Thief, after all the path led nowhere except to the monolith that bore Nocturnal's symbol. Thieves didn't pray very much, except for the odd heartfelt plea of "don't let them spot me" in the middle of a theft gone wrong, and such an invocation was rarely made with any real expectation of the prayer being answered. But now and again a member of the Guild would come down here and leave a small offering at the monolith. He'd occasionally wondered why. It wasn't like anything ever happened here. It was just a stone.

A smaller shadow detached itself from the shadow of the stone in the pre-dawn half light and became Karliah. Her words to them both held an edge of relief. "I'm glad you're here."

Mena was looking at the monolith with some curiosity. "What's the significance of this place?"

Karliah indicated the sheer cliff face behind her. "This is the headquarters of the Nightingales, cut into the mountainside by the first of our kind. We've come to seek the edge we need to defeat Mercer Frey."

"What kind of edge?"

Karliah sounded very tired. " If you follow me, I'll try to explain on the way."

The Dark Elf walked over to the rock and laid both hands against it. She murmured a few words under her breath and then stepped back. At first it seemed to Brynjolf that nothing was happening, and then he could see a crack appearing as what had initially appeared to be sheer stone became a door opening onto blackness beyond.

Karliah's shoulders slumped and her voice was full of her relief. "For a moment there I wasn't even sure that Nocturnal was going to let me through the door. I haven't tried to get into this place in twenty five years, and it was Gallus who opened the door then. But if we couldn't get in here, then that would have been the end of any real attempt to bring Mercer to the justice he so richly deserves."

Mena raised an eyebrow. "What happened to capturing Mercer alive?"

Karliah turned to look at her. "From the moment my poisoned arrow struck you at Snow Veil Sanctum, my path changed its course. We managed to clear my name and lay Gallus's shade to rest. I always intended Mercer's fate to be decided by the Guild, and it seems they have spoken."

The darkness beyond the door was fading to be replaced by a silvery half-light that was more like moonlight than the glow from braziers. Karliah stepped through the door. "Follow me."

Mena glanced at Brynjolf and he could see her uncertainty. He nodded. "I think we can trust Karliah. After all, if this is a trap it's a bloody stupid way to try to betray us, and whatever Karliah was, she was never stupid. Let's see what she's on about."

The caverns extended into passages with rough hewn rock, opened into huge chambers with arched ceilings, narrowed to corridors again. Banners with the same emblem that adorned the post outside hung everywhere. Firepots burned at every turn with the same white fire, which gave light but no heat and remained unconsumed. The whole place was deathly cold.

Brynjolf paused to study one of the banners. "So this is Nightingale Hall. I heard about this place when I joined the Guild, but I never believed it existed."

Karliah turned to look at him. "The idea that the Nightingales were just a myth was seeded in the Guild on purpose, it helped divert attention from our true nature. What's wrong, Brynjolf? I can almost hear your brow furrowing."

Brynjolf laughed but there was no mirth in it. "Trying to understand why I'm here, lass. I'm no priest, and I'm certainly not religious. Why pick me?"

Karliah shook her head. "It isn't about religion. This is Nightingale Hall. You are the first of the uninitiated, other than Raven, to set foot inside here for over a century. Now, if you'll both proceed to the Armory to don the Nightingale armour, we can begin the oath."

The Armory was a very large chamber, and almost completely bare other than the ubiquitous banners and firepots. On a raised stone plinth in the centre of the room stood three blocks of stone, or what appeared to be blocks of stone. Brynjolf was the first to climb onto the platform and study the stones. "These are like the door, aren't they? They aren't solid stone, they're chests. But there's no keyhole."

"You're right." Karliah climbed up beside him and Mena followed. She pointed to the Nightingale emblem on the stone. "Beside each emblem is a small carved moon - full moon, half moon, new moon. Those are the keys."

She turned to the chest that bore the half moon and laid her palm over the moon. There was a pause and then the lid silently opened, revealing a set of black armour. "Brynjolf, Gallus's aspect was the full moon. That's the place of the Agent of Strife, the Warrior Nightingale. It's no good my trying to explain to you exactly what that means because unless we sort Mercer out it won't make any difference to you anyway. But I think Gallus would have wanted to see you in his place. Lay your hand on the full moon."

He shook his head, but not in denial. "This is enough to make your head spin." Then he laid his palm on the symbol and the second chest opened. "So is this enchanted armour?"

"Yes and no." Karliah seemed uncertain how to explain. "Until Nocturnal accepts you, this is just very good armour. Light, strong, but no more than that. After she accepts you, some of the power of the armour becomes apparent. But we're ahead of ourselves here."

She looked at her own chest. "My aspect was the half moon, the place of the Agent of Subterfuge, the Trickster Nightingale. Mercer held the place of the Agent of Stealth, the Shadow Nightingale, the new moon's aspect. Mena, open his chest and take the armour."

Mena gave a silent nod and placed her palm over the symbol of the new moon. The third chest opened to her touch, and the three thieves dressed themselves in the black armour. It was lighter in weight even than the Thieves Guild armour, and somehow each set seemed a perfect fit for the thief who was wearing it. When Mena asked about this, Karliah answered shortly "It's the Lady's power," and seemed disinclined to answer further. When they were all armed, Brynjolf could see that the armour was unornamented, a matt black that absorbed light rather than reflecting it, and as with the chests, each breastplate bore the Nightingale symbol at its heart. As far as he could see, the three sets were identical.

Karliah led them both down another passage to a locked gate and paused. "Beyond this gate is the first step in becoming a Nightingale."

Brynjolf glanced at Mena. "You'd better tell us both the rest of it now, Karliah, before we pass the gate. Time's wasting, and Mercer's still out there but I've never in my life walked blind into a deal, and I don't intend to start now."

Karliah nodded. "To have any hope of defeating Mercer we must have Nocturnal at our backs. What I hope is that Nocturnal will accept you both as Nightingales and allow you to use your abilities to their full potential and in return you must serve as guardians of the Twilight Sepulcher, both in life and in death."

Brynjolf's mouth quirked in a mirthless smile. "There's always a catch. But I suppose at this point, there isn't much to lose. If it means the end of Mercer Frey, you can count me in."

Karliah looked at Mena. "What about you? Are you ready to transact the oath with Nocturnal?"

Mena's face was unsmiling. "I'm ready."

Karliah opened the gate with a spoken word and they walked through into a chamber that seemed half filled with an underground pool. A short walkway led out over the water to a small round circular platform bearing Nocturnal's sigil, and then fanned out into a further three unsupported paths amd three smaller circles. Each bore a moon symbol inlaid into the stone.

Karliah sighed. "Now, basically this is where it all went wrong last time. I'm simply hoping that Gallus was right and the reason that Nocturnal wouldn't recognise Raven was that she wasn't a thief. If that's not the case, then we've lost. This is the last throw of the dice."

She signalled to the pair of them to remain on the center platform and walked forward to stand on the middle sign, that bore the half moon. As she stepped on it, the moon sign glowed slowly, surrounding her in a soft silver light. She turned to face them. "Now you, Bryn. Take the far platform with the full moon."

He walked slowly along the narrow path, hesitated and then stepped onto the circle, and just as with Karliah's platform the full moon inlaid in the floor immediately shimmered to light that flickered around him.

Karliah let out a sigh. "So far so good. Mena, take the new moon."

Mena nodded and moved to the third platform but as she stepped on it, the platform remained dark. She frowned. "Am I doing something wrong?"

Karliah shook her head. "No. This was what I feared and what happened last time. The sign did not light for Raven either, and the three sigils must be lit for me to be able to speak with Nocturnal. What I don't understand is why. Even Gallus couldn't work it out."

Brynjolf shook his head. "I'm as lost as you are, lass. This is all a mystery to me, so if you've got no ideas at all, then what do we do?"

Mena was studying the dark sign under her feet and then suddenly she looked up. "I know why this isn't working."

Karliah looked startled. "You do?"

Mena nodded. "Yes. This isn't working because the place isn't empty. Mercer is - was - is the Nightingale holding the new moon's aspect, and even now he's betrayed everyone, he holds this place still. You cannot replace Mercer until he is dead, and you cannot kill him without the power of the trinity."

Karliah was nodding, her face grieved. "I believe you are right. But I do not know what to do, then. I will not let Mercer win."

Mena looked up at Karliah and suddenly there was a smile on her face - strange, fey, full of mischief. "What does any good Thief do when he's losing a game? He changes the rules."

"Lass," Brynjolf warned, "just what are you thinking of doing?"

She glanced at Brynjolf and walked back to to Nocturnal's symbol on the center platform, where to his surprise she knelt. When she spoke her words had a feeling of ritual to them.

"Dark Lady, the moon has a fourth face."

And suddenly the whole chamber was full of moonlight. Brynjolf was half blinded and shielded his eyes. He could see Mena's shape still, a silhouette against the light. And then a woman's voice came, calm, amused and utterly unearthly.

"Take care what you ask for, little fledgeling. Are you truly naming yourself the Black Nightingale?"

And Mena's answer came clearly.

"Is it not what I was born to be?"


	20. Chapter 20

"You intrigue me, little fledgeling." Nocturnal's voice which like the light appeared to come from no direction but from all around the room, now held an edge of curiosity. "Tell me, just how did you know how to call upon me, when even my own Nightingale did not?"

Either Brynjolf's eyes were getting more used to the light, or the light was dimmer than it had been. Mena was no longer just a dark shadow in white moonlight but was visible to him, and as she raised her head he could see that her eyes were closed but she was smiling. "Because, Lady, sometimes the children remember what their elders do not?"

And then she began to recite a rhyme and it was like a shock of cold water. He knew the verses, he had heard them only a few weeks ago watching children skipping down by the canal. He could even picture the scene in front of him, the older boy and girl turning the rope while the younger girl leaped and jumped, chanting softly. She had reminded him of Vex at that age - the lank fair hair, the dirty face screwed up in concentration, the nimble feet. He found that he was murmuring the same words as Mena in an undertone.

_"Nightingales fly in the Lady's Hall_

_And the Black Nightingale soars above them all_

_Warrior rests on the Lady's hand_

_Valiant and true, his voice in the land _

_On her shoulder the Trickster preens her wings_

_Lies and deceit are the songs that she sings_

_Shadow above her cries out wild and free_

_The eyes and the ears of the Lady is he _

_But when treachery comes to the Queen of the Night_

_From her hands and her will then, the Black takes her flight _

_When all has been lost, save the Lady's own Grace_

_Then remind her the moon bears another dark face"_

It was a rhyme as old as Riften, he could remember skipping games from his childhood that used those words. Somehow he realised that Nocturnal's attention had left Mena and had come to rest upon him. "So, Brynjolf, you who would be the Warrior, you knew of this too?"

He swallowed against a dry throat. "I did, Lady. But I thought it a child's rhyme. I never realised it had anything to do with you."

"And I have never heard it," said Karliah. "It must be a song of this land, I cannot remember anything like it from my childhood. How did such knowledge end up as a children's singing game, I wonder?"

Nocturnal's attention shifted from Brynjolf and back to Mena, like a moonbeam drifting across the floor. "So, little fledgeling, you learned the way to transcend the rules as a child? Open yourself to me, I wish to know you better."

Brynjolf had no idea what she meant, but he could see that Mena did. She rose gracefully to her feet and stood with her hands wide, their palms uppermost. Her eyes opened and the light swirled around her like a river of silver forming a whirlpool. The touch gave her pain, he could see it on her face and then could see the pain fade again as Nocturnal withdrew. Just what had Nocturnal learned?

When the Daedric Lord spoke again, her voice was full of laughter. "You truly are full of surprises, little one. So, it seems that the cockerel and the raven hatched a nightingale chick."

And that meant something to Karliah, even in the dim light her face was a mask of total shock. "She's Raven's child." Karliah's voice shook. "Mena is the child of Gallus and Raven."

His head snapped round to look at the Dark Elf. "Gallus's daughter?"

_Then Kematu was right - her father was indeed an Imperial and not a Nord. No wonder over and over she kept reminding me of someone and I couldn't think who..._

Mena seemed unable to hear what they were saying, transfixed in Nocturnal's silent inquisition again. Karliah nodded. "I told you that Gallus gave to Raven the same warning that I gave to you and Mena last night - that Daedric magic in general and moon magic in particular makes evil use of virgin blood. Gallus lay with Raven that night, here outside the Hall in the grass by the standing stone, and I held them both in my arms. But none of us knew a child had been conceived of it."

Mena turned her head as Nocturnal released her again, but it was not Mena that answered Karliah but Nocturnal again. "Oh, Karliah. You and Gallus were so similar in so many ways. You with your love of secrets, Gallus with his love of scholarship, you knew so much and yet you always believed far more in the magic and the ritual than you believed in me. Did it ever occur to either of you even to ask me why virginity and moon magic are such a terrible and powerful combination?"

Karliah's voice was barely a whisper. "No, Dark Lady."

Nocturnal's voice was gentler. "Because the risk is not in the virgin blood, but in the child that is conceived of a virgin in ritual. Because a Daedric Lord can be invoked under such circumstances so that the child becomes their avatar in the mortal world, and mostly when such a child has been conceived the results have been most evil indeed. Mehrunes Dagon, Molag Bal, Boethiah, all of them at one time or another have found entrance to the mortal realm by such a child. But great good has come out of such rituals as well. Martin Septim was conceived in such a ritual, though this is a fact that the history books have chosen to ignore, stating only that he was the Emperor's illegitimate child, and it was his status as a child of ritual as much as his dragon blood that made it possible for Akatosh to ride him in the end to battle Mehrunes Dagon."

Brynjolf knew a moment of stark terror.

_Oh Mena. What have we done tonight, you and I?_

Apparently his fear was visible on his face because Nocturnal addressed him directly. "Do not fear. No child has come of you and this little bird tonight, her moon tides run dark and life does not start at moon dark. But this was not the case with Raven, and Gallus in his fear brought about the very thing that he was attempting to prevent. Tell me, Karliah, what was in all your minds and your hearts that night?"

Karliah's voice was barely a whisper. "Anger. Fear of what Mercer might do. Fury at his betrayal. Grief. A desire for vengeance."

"Even so." Nocturnal sounded like she was teaching a lesson. "So, in your grief, and anger and fear, and especially your call for vengeance, what power do you think heard your call?"

Karliah's own fear was now naked on her face.

"Sithis." Her voice was shaken. "We called upon Sithis without knowing what we were doing. Dark Lady, what have we done?"

Nocturnal sounded kinder, the scolding mother now comforting the child. "Not what you fear, at least. Because you changed the ritual between you. With Gallus as my initiate, and Raven as an initiate of Sithis, you called on not one power that night, but two. And since you opened the channel to both of of us, you also made it impossible for either one of us to take her over. But you allowed her to draw from both of us. Tell me, little fledgeling," and her voice was clearly now directed at Mena, "how old were you when you learned that you could draw on the Dark Father's power?"

"Seven years old."

"And how did it manifest itself?"

Mena seemed frustrated by an inability to explain. "It's hard to say. I became aware that in certain circumstances - usually great anger - that there was something more than myself. Other people could see it in me and it terrified them without them knowing why. I learned early to hide it when I didn't need it. As I got older, it manifested only when I needed to kill - a darkness that guided my hand. I never gave it a name or knew who I called on. Only that when I called on it, it was there."

_And that's answered a question I wondered about long ago when you first came to us, Mena - just how you terrified those people in Riften into paying their debts. They saw who rode with you. But you never showed it to any of us. Never._

Nocturnal sounded gently amused. "The Dark Father and I have no quarrels, little fledgeling. He and I are in many ways two aspects of a whole, he is darkness and chaos and I am darkness and order. But you rode my power at times just as you rode his, there were times when my luck flowed through you and you achieved the impossible because of it. I did not begrudge it to you. But I am a jealous Lady, and I will have you for my own in the end, not because ritual handed me a helpless infant but because you chose to offer yourself to me as an adult. Mine, as my Black Nightingale, my servant, child and guardian and the weapon in my hand. Is that what you would ask of Nocturnal?"

"It is, Lady." Mena's voice was stronger now.

"Very well then." Nocturnal directed her words to Karliah. "From you then, Karliah, with your love of ritual. What is your request to me?"

Karliah went down on one knee and her words were clearly formal. "I call upon you Lady Nocturnal, Queen of Mirk and Empress of Shadow. I bring two to you to transact the Oath. We dedicate ourselves to you as both your avengers and your sentinels. We will honour our agreement in this life and the next, until your conditions have been met."

The light was all around them again and Nocturnal's voice filled their ears. "The conditions are met. Philomena Moons-Dark, Agent of Vengeance, Black Nightingale, I call you as the dagger to my right hand until my traitor is brought to justice. Brynjolf Full-Moon, Agent of Strife, Warrior Nightingale, I call you as the shield to my left hand, guardian of the Lady. Karliah Half-Moon, Agent of Subterfuge, Trickster Nightingale, I name your initiates Nightingale and I restore your status to the same." The Dark Lady's last words were almost teasing. "And in the future I'd suggest you refrain from disappointing me again. My patience is not limitless, little one."

And then the light died, and the three Thieves were left looking at each other.

Karliah beckoned for the other two to follow her and unspeaking they made their way up through the passages of Nightingale Hall until they came into the entrance hall and paused. Karliah spoke. "Only now can I tell you the final piece of the puzzle. You both already know that Mercer's theft of the skeleton key compromised our ties to Nocturnal and caused our luck to run dry. This is becaise the Key doesn't just unlock physical barriers, it unlocks the untapped abilities and powers within our bodies and minds. Once you realise the Key allows access to these traits, your potential becomes limitless, and our one remaining hope is that this is something Mercer has not realised."

Mena nodded. "It sounds like this is something that nobody should possess. Ever."

Karliah also nodded. "Good. Then you understand why this is about more than Mercer's lust for wealth and power. If the Key isn't returned to its lock in the Twilight Sepulcher then things will never be the same for the Guild. As time passed our luck would diminish to non-existence, and whether you know it or not, our uncanny luck defines our trade."

Brynjolf actually chuckled. "First time I ever set out to return something, lass."

Karliah turned to look at him. "Very true. In our line of work it's quite rare for us to return something to its rightful owner. But there has to be an exception to every rule."

Brynjolf studied both his hands. "I don't feel stronger, lass. Was something else supposed to happen?"

"With the key missing from the Twilight Sepulchre, Mercer's seen to it that none of us can benefit from Nocturnal's gifts." Karliah said. "We merely transacted the Oath. For us to receive our side of the bargain, the Key must be returned."

Mena looked curious. "Then she's angry at us? She didn't seem angry. If anything, she seemed to find us...amusing."

Karliah shook her head. "If Nocturnal was truly displeased with me - with any of us - she wouldn't have answered your call, no matter what you said or who you were. I believe that we still hold her favour, and that it gives us enough of an edge to defeat Mercer Frey."

"Back to the Guild then." Brynjolf opened the door to let the other two through. "We'll pack a few things, then make the best time we can after Mercer. This is going to have an ending, one way or another. Lady willing."

"Lady willing," Karliah echoed, and the door closed behind them.

_**Author's note. "Gallus" is the Latin for "cockerel" and since all the Imperial names seem to be Latin in origin, I couldn't resist letting Nocturnal make that joke about the cockerel and the raven :)**_


	21. Chapter 21

_**" 'Gentlemen,' he said,**_

_**'I don't need your organization, I've shined your shoes,**_

_**I've moved your mountains and marked your cards**_

_**But Eden is burning, either brace yourself for elimination**_

_**Or else your hearts must have the courage for the changing of the guards.' "**_

_**Bob Dylan - Changing of the Guards**_

* * *

><p>Brynjolf had lost track of the time that they had spent in Nightingale Hall, it could have been an hour, a day, a lifetime, and he was surprised to see the gold-rose of dawn still glowing in the eastern sky as the ancient door clanged shut behind them.<p>

"Lady of Dawn who closes the door for her dark sister, into your hands, Azura, we give this day," Karliah murmured. It had a sound of ritual to it but he made no comment. There was far too much else to think about.

Mena jerked her head in the direction of Riften's walls. "Back to the guild?"

"Back to the guild," Brynjolf agreed. "But before that, lass, you're going to answer one question. Fully, without evasion, without lies. Deal?"

She looked at him with a half smile. "And what is the question?"

"Lass, just who the hell are you?"

That got a soft laugh from Karliah as Mena sighed. "I suspect the answer is going to be quite a long story. Can we keep walking while you tell us?"

Mena nodded jerkily and they picked their way along the overgrown path, with her quiet voice a counterpoint to the rustling of dead leaves beneath their feet.

"I am Philomena, a Windlady of the House of the South Wind which is no more, daughter of the Windlady Jazaala who was known to you as Raven, and of Gallus, once Master of the Thieves Guild of Skyrim, granddaughter to Fassith, last South Wind King of the city of Taneth and its lands. I am an exile from my homeland of Hammerfell for five years now. I can never return."

Her voice had taken on the almost musical chant that Brynjolf remembered from the night of story telling, though there was no drum beat now to echo her tale, only their footsteps setting their own beat.

"I am a Black Talon of the Thieves Guild of Hegathe, given that rank after the five years that I trained with them when my city fell and I was smuggled out of its ashes. I am not Dark Brotherhood, but I lived with the Brotherhood for over a year when I was fourteen, and received some of their training."

A raven flew up from the bushes ahead of them, crying its rough call to the wind and Mena paused for a second to let it pass, her grey eyes watching it fly until it was no more than a speck in the brightening eastern sky.

"When my city fell, and my grandparents and their only legitimate son burned on the pyres of the enemy invader, the direct line of the House of the South Wind which had ruled that city for nine generations was ended. With the liberation of Hammerfell the city passed to the House of the East Wind, an old and noble line, but the transition was not without turmoil. The current king and queen of Taneth who have ruled that city now for ten years are good and kind and wise, and have governed the people well. But they live under a shadow that can never be shaken off, because they are blood kin to the traitress Iman who betrayed the city to the Aldmeri Dominion, and for that reason many do not want them as rulers. The title of Windlord or Windlady is carried by an illegitimate child of one of the Great Houses, and we are barred from the succession, but even now if it were known that I lived, there would be those attempting to put me forward as a pretender to a throne I have no right to, simply because of who my grandparents were. That alone would be reason enough to flee Hammerfell. Taneth has suffered enough, without being torn apart in a hopeless civil war that sets her people against each other. But it is not the only reason."

She paused for so long that Brynjolf thought for a minute that the story was ended. Just as he was about to prompt her, she began speaking again in a tone so soft that both he and Karliah drew closer to her to hear what she was saying.

"The Thalmor sought me after my escape from Taneth, even now they would like very much to know where I am and how I did what I did. But one little half-blood Redguard in Skyrim is much like another, there are many of my people here and they married men and women of this land and bore children that mingled the blood of the desert and the snow. For a long time my greatest protection was that the Thalmor thought me dead - and they believed me to be a boy. But for many reasons they now know both those assumptions to be false."

"Are you sure of that, lass?"

"No. But Kematu has been my eyes and ears in the last years, and he has brought back word that Thalmor agents in Hammerfell are now hunting for a woman, not a man. Apparently someone in the Summerset Isles unearthed the old Gold Dragon prophecy, and for reasons of their own they consider it applies to me."

This clearly meant something to Karliah. "I've heard of it, people talked about it when the dragons started reappearing. But what exactly is the prophecy, and why do they think it applies to you, Mena?"

Mena took a deep breath. "Thus spoke the Bosmer seer Dagail of the Leyawiin Mages Guild in the days of Martin Septim."

_"Out of the flames of war and the ashes of hope_

_a gold dragon rises out of the desert on the South Wind_

_born of two bloods, claimed by two lands_

_three times shall she be both saviour and sacrifice_

_the first time to lose a home and save a homeland_

_the second to relinquish a throne and save a kingdom_

_the third to give up a future to save all futures"_

Brynjolf's mouth hung open. "And they think you're this "gold dragon", lass?"

"Well obviously not literally. But at least some of them apparently do identify me with the prophecy. But what they think they'd achieve by my capture and probable execution, the Dark Lady only knows. Other than revenge which is never to be underestimated as a reason for anything."

They became silent as they passed Riften's gate guards and slipped through the gate to the graveyard. As they approached the mausoleum that hid the entrance to the Guild, they could see that Delvin was sitting there waiting for them.

"So you managed it then."

"Del, how long have you been waiting?"

"Since we got our visitor."

"What visitor?"

Delvin stood up and pushed aside the cover to the passageway. "I think you'd better come and see for yourselves.

As they climbed down the ladder, they could hear the cheering starting. Brynjolf, last to enter, turned around to see every active member of the Guild standing in a semicircle in the Cistern, clapping and cheering. Mena was being hugged by Tonilia, Vekel of all people had picked up Karliah and spun her around in a circle, laughing. Then Brynjolf had all the breath knocked out of him as Vex embraced him fiercely. He held her for a minute, then looked across to Delvin. "This looks like a party. Just how did you all know what was happening?"

Delvin was grinning. "The Dark Lady paid us a visit, boss. Less than an hour ago."

Karliah looked stunned. "She did what?"

Vex took up the tale. "It was about half an hour before dawn. Most people were still asleep. But asleep or awake, dream or vision, we all saw the same thing. A woman robed in black from head to foot, her face hidden by a deep cowl, walked through here bearing something in her hands covered in a cloth. Even those of us were awake could do or say nothing, it was like one of those dreams where you cannot move or speak. She set her burden down over there, in the alcove and then walked back to the door. We couldn't see her face and yet we knew she was smiling. She turned once to look at all of us - and then she vanished. Like a ghost. But what she brought was no vision. Go and look."

Brynjolf pushed through the crowd. Mena was ahead of him. Without turning round he could feel Karliah at his back. The three of them gazed without speaking. Standing in the alcove was a statue of the Daedric Lord Nocturnal, carved in black stone with the nightingales on her hands and left shoulder. It stood on a stone block and was flanked by two more blocks bearing lanterns, each of the blocks carved with the Nightingale symbol. Someone had already laid a small bunch of flowers in front of it.

Delvin spoke over his left shoulder. "The Lady's come home to us, Bryn."

He turned and nodded. "She has. I need to talk to you and to Vex. Karliah, can you and Mena be at Riften's gate in an hour with horses?"

Karlian nodded. "We'll be there."

He touched Mena's cheek gently. "Go and see Herluin, lass, and let him check that wound before we ride. I won't be long."

Mena nodded and slipped away. He drew Vex and Delvin to one side and glanced around to make sure nobody else was in earshot.

"Mena, Karliah and I are going after Mercer. At least now, going with the Lady's blessing we may have some chance of finishing this. Until we return, you two are going to hold things together here, as you always have. But we need to talk about more than that."

Delvin perched on the edge of a nearby barrel. "Go on."

He sighed. "Now. Like it or not, at least for the moment I seem to have ended up as Guildmaster. And I can tell you that I don't like it in the least. You both know that I never wanted the job, and I don't consider myself up to it. But there isn't much choice at the moment."

Vex gave a wry smile. "The fact that you don't want the job, Bryn, might be the best recommendation for giving it to you. We've already seen what happens when someone does want the job..."

"True. Mercer's going to be the bad example that we're telling the young thieves about to scare them for thirty years to come. But Mercer can't take all the blame. We were blind. We were all so afraid in the wake of the Ratway Wars that we would have followed anyone who seemed to know what they were doing. That isn't good enough. If we'd really been keeping an eye on how things were here, instead of cursing the failing luck and trusting that Mercer had it all in hand, we would never have ended up as we did. We all destroyed the Guild, and now it's going to take all of us to rebuild it."

Delvin looked thoughful. "Go on."

"I was thinking on the way to Nightingale Hall tonight that a trinity is strong for more reasons than some magical necessity. A triangle is a strong shape, and three voices are a strong agreement. Or disagreement. What I want to do is this - if the two of you agree. I'll take the role of Guildmaster - provisionally for now, with both of you as Guildseconds. Any major decision will be made by the three of us, not just me alone. If the three of us can't agree, then I get the casting vote. But if the two of you ever are in agreement that my decision is wrong, then the two of you outvote me. We cannot have this place standing or falling on my word - or the word of any one man or woman in the future."

Both of them were nodding. "It should work, boss." Delvin said. "But are you sure you want us as seconds? I was expecting you to want Karliah or Mena as a second."

"It wouldn't work, Del, even if they agreed to it - and they wouldn't agree. Karliah, despite being proved innocent of the murder that we all believed she had done is still not liked or trusted by people here, and they wouldn't follow her. Mena in time would make a Guildsecond, or even a Guildmaster, but not yet. Not for years yet. Not because she's not a good Thief - Del, you've said yourself that she's one of the best damned thieves in the place. But because she needs the time. Time to grow, time to heal - and I don't mean from the knife wound that Mercer put in her back. We haven't been able to give her much else. But we can give her the time."

Vex idly tossed her knife in her hand. "So you go after Mercer today?"

"Yes. He's ahead of us already, our only chance is to get to him while he is still in Irkngthand. Four days hard riding should get us there - I'm hoping that because he doesn't know that we know where he's going, that we have a chance of catching him still."

Delvin offered a hand. "Shadow hide you then, and good hunting, Bryn."

He took Delvin's hand in a firm grasp, felt Vex take his other hand and for a moment they stood joined together, a second and earthly trinity to counterbalance the unearthly triumvirate of the Nightingales.

When he glanced at the statue, he was sure that Nocturnal was smiling.

_**Author's note - I took some licence with the timing of the appearence of Nocturnal's shrine in the Guild - in game it doesn't appear until after the Key is returned to the Twilight Sepulchre. I chose for reasons of plotline to have it appear a little earlier :)**_


	22. Chapter 22

When Brynjolf reached the stables outside the Riften gate, the two women were already mounted and waiting for him. The third horse that was tied to the rail beside them was strangely familiar. It turned its chestnut head to give him a baleful look out of its one eye, and he knew exactly where he had seen it before.

Karliah saw his wince and laughed. "I rode it all the way back from Markarth to Riften. It's your turn this time, Bryn."

"Might have know I hadn't seen the last of this old bag of bones." Brynjolf tightened the straps on the saddle. "Kematu didn't wish to keep it for himself?"

"No, he pressed it on me with great enthusiasm. Said he'd take the cart back to Whiterun. By the time I'd ridden it for two miles, I knew why."

Mena gave a sudden laugh. "I did offer to swap with you, if you remember."

"After the third time that black bucked you off in a morning," Karliah said.

Mena wrinkled her nose. "Well, given I stole it from the Jarl of Winterhold, I expected it to be sound, fast, and well mannered. I suppose that two out of three weren't bad."

Brynjolf laughed and swung up onto the chestnut's hard saddle. "Let's ride."

The journey was long and cold and snowing a great deal of the time. Some days they covered less than ten miles, on others it was closer to thirty. They tended to stop at whatever point there was some isolated inn which had stabling, on the few times that this was not possible they slept in whatever cave they could find. On one occasion they had to evict a snow bear first and the bear did not take kindly to the eviction, resulting in a pitched battle which the bear finally lost. Karliah was heard to complain about the waste of the hide. Brynjolf told her to get her priorities straight. The bear steaks made a good supper though.

Despite the hardships of the travel and the urgency of the errand, the mood was remarkably light-hearted, at least in the early stages. They sang, told jokes and stories, if it were not for the grim ending that was awaiting them it might almost have been a holiday. Mena always refused to sing, but had a good selection of chanted tales, mostly from Hammerfell, a few from Skyrim itself. Karliah sang old Dunmer drinking songs, and to Brynjolf's surprise and amusement had a lot of bawdy jokes from her homeland that he'd never heard before. He contributed both songs and stories when the other two became tired and got the look on their faces that said they were starting to think too much about what might be waiting for them at journey's ending. There would be time enough to deal with whatever that evil might be when they got there. He also noticed that at night with Mena curled up to him for warmth in a cave or a draughty inn room, she slept without dreams, or if she dreamed at all it was not of past horrors. Lying there in the early mornings with her warm shape pressed against him he found himself thinking odd thoughts, that if sleeping beside him stopped her nightmares then it was a way of life he had no problems with. Permanence had not been something that featured much in his life before, and it was something he wasn't yet willing to give a name to. But he was prepared to think about it.

Irtngthand was high in the mountains and for the last miles of their ride the horses were picking their way through high, rough terrain with no obvious tracks. Karliah had stated her intention of camping near the old dragon wall at Shearpoint for the final night of their journey but this had to be abandoned. There was no sign of a dragon there, but Mena had objected strongly as soon as she saw the old curved grey wall with its writing worn with time, words of a language long forgotten.

"I'm not sleeping here."

"What's wrong lass?" Brynjolf reined in the chestnut horse beside her.

She was staring at the wall. "You won't get me within fifty feet of one of those again. They talk."

Karliah had already dismounted and led her horse up to the wall. She slapped the stone, sending showers of dust down. "It's just an old monument, Mena. Nothing more."

Mena shook her head. "I tell you, they talk. When I was first in Skyrim, I took a job to find a stolen key inside an old barrow on the hills above Riverwood. I nearly didn't come out again."

"Bleak Falls Barrow?" Brynjolf was shaking his head. "Even I've heard of that one. The place has a very evil reputation."

"The reputation was deserved." Mena had turned her back on the old wall as if trying to pretend it was not there. "I was sent in there to retrieve a golden claw which had been kept as an ornament in the general store in Riverwood. The thief had worked out that the claw was more than just an ornament, that it could be used to open one of those dragon doors with the concentric rings."

Brynjolf frowned. "I've seen those before on tombs. They're quite impossible to pick. You say the keys for them look like claws?"

Mena nodded. "The claws are made out of some sort of precious material - gemstone, ebony, silver - this one was golden. Only person I ever saw get through one of those puzzle doors by picking it was Mercer in Snow Veil Sanctum - he said there was a trick to them if you knew how to do it."

Karliah shook her head. "There is no trick. Unless you call his theft of the Skeleton Key the trick. I had the key to that door. But go on, Mena? Who was the thief who had taken the claw?"

"Well, according to his journal, his name was Arvel."

That meant something to both Karliah and Brynjolf. Karliah looked resigned. Brynjolf angry. Mena looked at them both. "Was he Thieves Guild?"

Karliah nodded but Brynjolf shook his head. "He used to be. Was with us for over twenty years. Then got himself thrown out ten years ago for breaking Gallus's golden rule."

Mena looked puzzled. "Gallus's golden rule?"

"We don't enforce it any more, lass, more's the pity. But back then we still did and even Mercer couldn't ignore what that wretched Dunmer did."

Karliah added an explanation. "Thieves train in weapon skills just like anyone else. And when we go hunting in a cave, or a ruin, or a bandit tower, we go armed to the teeth and the gods pity anyone who gets in our way. But in Gallus's day there was an unbreakable rule. If we went within city walls to do a burglary, or a heist, or a shill job, or anything like that, we went unarmed. Before we left the Guild we checked each other for hidden weapons, and anyone found to be carrying one was booted out into the night and never trusted again. No first warnings, no second chances. Gallus knew all too well that a thief who panics when a job goes wrong can kill, and immediately then he's a murderer - and everyone who was with him is an accessory to murder - and that ends up only one way, with every last one of them on the headsman's block. If you're taken for theft then it's the prison, or the pillory, or the work gangs. But murderers and their accomplices die. We never risked it."

"Mercer let it lapse in latter days, lass. And there have been deaths. Arvel took a dagger with him on a burglary, and the shopkeeper woke up while it was going on. Arvel knifed him. Then he nearly managed to lead the guards back to our hidden entrance. If we'd got our hands on him we'd have killed him ourselves. He knew that - and he ran. Last we saw of him for ten years."

"Well, justice arrived, even if it was late." Mena said. "He lies somewhere in the depths of Bleak Falls Barrow with my arrow in his throat."

"Good riddance, lass. But what does this all have to do with that stone carving?"

"There was one in the barrow, near the far exit, beyond the puzzle door. It was guarded by a Draugr Wight, and I had a hard fight to get him down. I killed him right at the foot of the wall, and as he fell, I heard it."

"Heard what?"

"Chanting. In no language I've ever heard before. Three words, over and over again, getting louder and louder. Then one of the words on the wall started to glow and I couldn't take my eyes off it. It was some sort of mind trap - I seemed to break free of it several hours later, the wall was just a wall again, the glowing word was gone. If another Draugr had showed up while I was trapped by it then I would have been dead. Couldn't even have lifted a blade to save myself."

Karliah looked intrigued. "Can you remember what the word said?"

"No. It was in no language I'd ever seen, and when I came round I couldn't even remember which word it was. I did pick up a stone tablet near it which had an odd design on it and some of the same words, but when I showed it to people back in Riverwood none of them recognised the language either. That woman in the Riverwood inn paid me a small amount of coin for it, she said that the wizard who worked for the Jarl in Whiterun usually bought curiosities that came out of the old barrows and she'd take it to him the next time she went to Dragonsreach." Mena saw Karliah about to speak and forestalled her. "And no, before you ask, I am not going anywhere near that wall to see if it happens again. It might well be that one of the Draugr casters in that tomb had set some sort of curse on the wall and I was just lucky it didn't trigger when I was fighting the Wight, otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation. But I am not approaching that wall, and I am not sleeping here tonight."

"Fair enough, lass." Brynjolf swung down off the chestnut horse. "We're less than two miles from our goal anyway, we'll go a little way down the slope into the pinewoods and camp there. We need to turn the horses loose anyway. We've got no way to tether or picket them safely, we don't know how long we'll be in Irtngthand, and if we hobble them they'll be wolf bait. Let them go. Someone will get an unexpected bonus when he finds them."

"If anyone recognises the black, they might even take it back to the Jarl of Winterhold and claim the reward," Karliah added, stripping the saddle off her nondescript bay. "I heard that he was offering a quite substantial sum for its safe return."

Mena snorted. "Best of luck to them. I ought to charge the Jarl for schooling the wretched thing for him, at least it doesn't spend its whole time trying to buck people off any more."

They drove the horses off down the mountain path that had led up to Shearpoint and then made their way down into the woods on foot. An icy drizzle had started to fall and the chances of sleeping dry that night were poor, but they managed to find a clearing and build a small cooking fire, which Brynjolf insisted on carefully extinguishing again after their scanty supper was hot. "We've no idea whether he's got friends down there keeping watch for him, and the smoke from a wet fire shows for miles. Lets not chance it."

They rolled themselves into their sleeping hides and lay under the biggest tree. Despite the uncomfortable conditions it was surprisingly easy to sleep, tired as they all were. The rain ceased some time towards dawn and by the time Brynjolf stirred there was pale sunlight glinting through the wet branches. Mena and Karliah were both slower to stir, but at last they were all up, a cold breakfast eaten and their packs and sleeping hides concealed under a layer of pine needles. Mena unwrapped her bow and slung it over her shoulder, the waxed cloth it was wrapped in had kept the string tolerably dry. Karliah did the same. Brynjolf glanced at the sun and then pointed. "That way. Downhill and to the right. It should bring us out right above Irtngthand - it'll be a steep climb down but we should at least be in cover for most of it. It'll let us take a look at the place before we decide how best to get in."

The approach from cover proved to be fortunate. Karliah at point suddenly held up a hand and the other two ducked down. "Bandits," she hissed. "Large camp outside the main gate. Most at ground level. Main gate's barred from this side."

"Can we get down from up here?" Brynjolf was scanning to the left. "It looks like the main entrance is high up - I see no point in going down to ground level to fight our way in."

"There's ladders and hanging bridges. If we skirt along the top it's a short drop to the bridge leading to the door. Just slide down onto that dome first. And pray that nobody looks up."

Whether prayer had anything to do with it or not, or whether Nocturnal was casting a shadow over her own, no bandit looked up. They made it to the shadow of the main door, half ajar, and squeezed through the gap, not daring to pull it any further open in case the noise alerted anyone inside.

"I wonder why the camp was outside?" Mena said in an undertone. "You'd think they'd sleep drier and warmer in here - and only have the one entrance to defend."

Brynjolf's voice was harsh. "I think they did, lass. It didn't save them."

The main hall was full of fallen masonry - and bodies. Some of the bodies were still warm. Brynjolf counted four, lying where they had fallen. Two had no marks that he could see, one when turned over had an arrow wound in the head, one more had had his throat cut.

"This is Mercer's doing." Karliah's voice was as bleak as Brynjolf had ever heard it. "He could easily have bypassed them. He didn't. This is a challenge to anyone following."

Brynjolf nodded. "Mercer will answer for this. Theft is one thing. Murder is another. This is murder, pure and simple. He wanted us to know just what he would do to us if we hunted him here."

Mena shook her head. "Only one more man dies today. And that man is Mercer Frey."


	23. Chapter 23

_**"Peace will come**_

_**With tranquillity and splendor on the wheels of fire**_

_**But will bring us no reward when her false idols fall**_

_**And cruel death surrenders with it's pale ghost retreating**_

_**Between the King and the Queen of Swords."**_

_**Bob Dylan - Changing of the Guards**_

* * *

><p>The whole place was warmer than Brynjolf had expected. Normally caves and ruins in Skyrim were desolate and icy, but here the air was if not warm, at least without chill. Great pools of water were everywhere, filling the carved basins with liquid mirrors. And those were warm as well. He trailed a hand in one and the liquid was tepid to the touch, as if heated from some unseen furnace below.<p>

Karliah was watching him with raised eyebrows. "Bryn, are you absolutely sure you want to be doing that?"

"Why not, lass?"

She pointed. "Well, are you quite sure that isn't going to wake up?"

He suddenly saw what she was pointing at. Deep in the water lay a dwarven sphere guardian, apparently undamaged. The flickering of candles reflected in the water gave it an odd illusion of life, as though the long-defunct clockwork could surge into action at any second.

"I don't think it's coming back, lass. Not after however many centuries down there."

Mena pointed. "It may not be. But that one is..."

At the foot of the stairs a spider clockwork had lurched into action and was pacing the floor with an erratic gait; one of the mechanical legs apparently had seized up and was being dragged behind it. A little further down the passage there was another inactive one, and then a whirring sound down the hall suggested that the crippled spider was not the only clockwork left in the place that was actually functional.

"Anyone ever seen these before?" Brynjolf said.

Mena shook her head but Karliah nodded. "I have. Best way to inactivate one is to get an arrow into the joint on the centre back, it usually rips the plating open and knocks the soul gem free."

Mena looked horrified. "You mean these are powered by soul gems? Filled ones?"

Karliah nodded. Mena shook her head. "That is just...wrong." There was revulsion in her voice and both the Nord and the Dark Elf looked at her curiously. She became aware of their gaze. "You mean you don't have a problem with it?"

Brynjolf shook his head. "I never thought about it, lass. A soul gem's just a soul gem. Black soul gems that hold human souls - yes, that's evil. But that's not what these are?"

Mena shivered. "It's something I was taught as a child. That the only justification for trapping a soul to power a weapon is that the soul is released again when the gem is destroyed in the forging. There are parts of Hammerfell where the law only permits a filled soul gem to be held for seven days after the filling. Then it must be destroyed so the soul flies free on the wind again. But these souls have been held trapped for decades? Centuries? Longer? It's vile."

Karliah pointed at the spider clockwork. "Then, let's free them. Mena, can you get an arrow into that one?"

The Redguard drew her bowstring back to her cheek and paused, waiting for the damaged spider to cross the foot of the stairs again. She breathed in once and then let the arrow fly, humming unerringly to its target. The barbed point struck the joint in the back with a force that almost pinned the clockwork to the floor and with a scream of damaged metal that was close to a cry of pain the clockwork went silent and inert.

They waited, hardly breathing, but nothing came down the hall to see what had happened. Mena eventually led them down the stairs and retrived her arrow, but discarded it after examination, the glass point was shattered, as was the soul gem that it had fragmented.

"Well, that's one soul freed," Karliah's dry voice came from over Mena's shoulder.

There was a flash of anger that came and went in Mena's eyes, then she gave a non-commital nod and dropped back to let the other two Thieves precede her down the corridor.

No clockworks could be seen, but the reason for the whirring sound became clear as they entered the next chamber. Four huge spinning wheels dominated the whole room, spitting gouts of flame in all directions.

"First check," Brynjolf said under his breath. "Reckon this place was always like this, or has Mercer primed the traps as he passed through?"

"Both," was Karliah's reply. "I've never seen one of these ruins which wasn't a mass of problems - and this was the point that defeated us when we came before. Gallus could find no way to get across here, and if there's anywhere that these can be deactivated, then we couldn't see it."

"Well, Mercer clearly got across somehow lass, since he's still ahead of us."

Mena pointed. "But they didn't."

Below the spinning wheels were several corpses, mostly charred beyond recognition. Brynjolf raised his eyebrows. "I wouldn't have thought that the bandits would be fools enough to come all the way in here."

Karliah shook her head. "They didn't. Those aren't human, they're Falmer."

"I'll take your word for it, lass. I guess that figures, given what we know about the ruins. Now, how are we going to get past this?"

Mena had been watching the wheels intently and suddenly she spoke. "They're on a pattern. Look."

The other two thieves watched, and then Brynjolf nodded. "You're right, lass. They seem like they're firing randomly, and then every seventh set of flames is in order with the wheels clockwise around the room. If we could wait for the seventh turn and then run across, following the fire..."

"Risky," said Karliah, "but I grant you that I can't see a better idea."

Mena nodded and slung her bow over her back. "Let me try it first. If I get across, wait the seven patterns out and follow me."

Before they could object she had leapt down into the heart of the chamber and was running. They watched her go and when for a moment she stumbled at the far side it seemed that all was lost, then she regained her balance and flung herself forward onto hands and knees, scaling the steps to the far door with frantic haste just ahead of the flames.

Karliah let out the breath she had been holding. "Well, that's one across. You go next, Bryn."

Brynjolf's passage across the room was nervewracking but uneventful, and Karliah followed him safely. They paused in the passage beyond the door to catch their breath.

"First round to us, Mercer," Brynjolf muttered.

Karliah's face cracked into a grim smile. "We should tread carefully, I wouldn't be surprised if he'd left behind a few other little surprises for us."

Mena unstoppered her water bottle and took a few sparing sips, offering it to the other two who both shook their heads. "So what, if anything, do we know about what is deeper in here?"

Karliah sighed. "Not much, and most of what we know is more rumour than fact. I think it's possible that Mercer always knew more about this place than we did, because his actions in here don't appear to be random. It's like he knew we would follow him here, and he's letting the traps and the Dwarven constructs wear us down before he finishes us off."

"Well, he could still have a nasty little surprise coming then, lass. Three nasty little surprises. How did Gallus know about this place in the first place?"

Karliah thought for a while before answering. "Some years ago the Guild took took in a thief from Windhelm who specialised in dwarven antiquities who'd robbed a house there of a figure of a snow elf with crystalline eyes - Falmer used to be called snow elves before they became the blind monstrosities that they are today. Gallus knew it was something special - he took it to Enthir, who found a book in the college library about Irtinghand and a great statue with gemmed eyes within. Flawlessly cut and as big as a man's head. Gallus and Mercer spent nearly a month infiltrating Irtinghand but the dwarves had protected the place too well, too many problems blocking the way. The plans were shelved and the rest is history."

"Until now." Brynjolf's voice held an edge of anger and the sound echoed in the corridor.

Karliah shook her head. "Keep as quiet as you can. The Falmer may be blind but they can still hear us. And it's more than an even bet that the place will be crawling with them before we get much further in."

Mena sounded slightly amused. "I take it that it's too much to hope for that the Falmer might get to Mercer first and save us all the trouble?"

Karliah smiled but there was no amusement in it. "Not a hope. Mercer wouldn't just have left that map where we could find it - it's a trap. He plans to ambush us down here, I'm almost certain of it. The Skeleton Key is his protection here - he was always one of our greatest stealth operatives. If he has worked out how to use the key to enhance his own abilities then he could walk past a Falmer and they simply would not sense him."

Mena looked thoughtful. "Would they smell him?"

"It's a fair point. Falmer hunt by smell. It's one of the reasons that most invisibility potions have something in them that also masks scent. Not much point in your enemies not being able to see you if your smell pinpoints you from fifty yards. He must have done something about that."

"I'm not entirely sure how they'd smell anything down here, lass. All I can smell is those wretched chaurus eggs everywhere. I'm amazed we haven't seen any of the adults."

Karliah suddenly looked up. "That's not a bad thought, actually. Chaurus eggs are used in invisibility potions anyway, partly for that reason. I wouldn't try eating them, but if we broke a few and smeared it on ourselves it might just make the difference."

With a grimace, Brynjolf scooped a handful of the grey-blue eggs out of the glistening mound by the corridor wall. "Here you are, ladies."

The disgusting operation was carried out at speed and with a few muttered complaints. Karliah wiped the residue from her gauntlets on the wall. "Better press on."

The door at the far end of the corridor was locked - the first locked door that any of them had found. Brynjolf unrolled the black velvet cloth in which he kept his picks and set to work. The lock was picked with surprising ease.

"That didn't take you long, Bryn." Karliah commented.

"Too right, lass. A very simple lock, which usually means there's something nasty waiting behind it. Both of you step a little way back down the corridor."

The women retreated a few paces. Brynjolf edged the door open a crack, then tugged and leapt backwards at the same time. It was no idle precaution. A huge spiked morning star on a chain tumbled down, swinging wildly in the air just at head height.

"Second round to us too, Mercer." Brynjolf looked at the swinging trap. "Did he really think we'd fall for it that easily?"

Karliah was already picking her way cautiously through the door. Her quiet voice drifted back to them. "It's a taunt to us, like all the others. Just come here and look at this..."


	24. Chapter 24

"Look at the size of this place" Brynjolf whistled softly under his breath. "This looks like it was built to house dragons, not dwarves. Have you ever seen anything like it in your life, lass?"

Karliah shook her head and for a moment looked amused. "I can't say that I have. Under other circumstances I'd already be speculating about the treasures that might be hidden in here. Then I saw..." her voice trailed off and she pointed.

The room, or hall, or vault, whichever anyone wanted to call it, was laid out below them, and it was clear that they were coming into the territory claimed by the blind Falmer. Broken doors hung off their hinges around the room, partly or completely blocked with rubble, and the strange huts that Falmer built were everywhere; but mostly appeared to be empty. At first Brynjolf could see no living creature at all down there, then a couple of skulking shadows became visible within the huts; another one stood on the roof of a broken balcony holding a crude bow.

"What do you want me to look at, lass? I can see those Falmer in the far corner."

Karliah shook her head, her lips drawn back from her teeth in the snarl. "Not them. Look at the western wall."

"Mercer." The hiss that Mena pronounced the name with converted it into an obscenity, and she also pointed. This time Brynjolf could see what she was pointing at, the tiny figure of a man creeping in the shadows towards the door in the far wall.

Karliah touched the lock on the gate beside her, still staring intently at Mercer through the bars. "Bryn, can you get this open?"

"On it, lass." He palmed a lockpick and slid it into the keyhole, but the pick could only be advanced the width of a fingertip, then it grated on something solid. "Damn him. He's deliberately broken the lock so we could only get through it by smashing it - and the noise would bring down every Falmer in the place on our heads. We're not going to get through it this way."

Mena had nocked an arrow and drawn the bowstring back, but she eased the string again and pointed the bow to the floor. "He's out of my range, even at full draw. Is there no other way down?"

Karliah was studying the wall behind them. "I've seen something like this before. There's a lever here, but I've already tried it and it doesn't open that gate. But sometimes there's a hidden lever somewhere else and both have to be used simultaneously to open the gates or doors. I'm not even sure that Mercer broke that lock, Bryn, it may not actually be a lock at all. There's false locks all over Dwemer ruins, designed to waste the time of an intruder picking something that can't be picked. We need to find the second lever."

The second lever wasn't even that well hidden. The problem was that it wouldn't move an inch, even with Brynjolf's full strength behind it. He paused. "Think Mercer's done something to this as well?"

"Possibly." Karliah sounded weary. "Any ideas, Mena?"

The Redguard pointed. High above them some shattered rubble balanced on the edge of a broken balcony. "Only this. That's balanced quite precariously - an arrow would probably shift it. If it fell onto the lever, the force of the fall might move it - but it might just as easily break it completely. It would make the most unholy noise as well, we'd have every Falmer in the place down on top of us."

"Not a bad idea lass, but not worth the risk. Let me have a look at the first door again."

The second attempt at the lock - if indeed it was a lock - was no more effective than the first, and at last Brynjolf stood back, defeated. "This round's to Mercer, I think."

Mena walked along the balcony. "The barrier's about ten feet high and the drop here would be shallow, onto some more of the rubble. If we brought in some of the rubbish from those rooms we passed and piled it up, we could climb over here."

Karliah nodded. " I can't see any alternative - but it's infuriating. We were so close to Mercer here - we actually saw him, and now we're going to drop behind him again."

"I think that's the whole point, lass." Brynjolf was already positioning two broken chests at the corner of the balcony that Mena had indicated. "He's taunting us. He wants us to follow. Do you think that it was an accident that we came into this room just at the moment that he was crossing it? Because I don't."

"Nor do I." Karliah added another box to the pile. "I've thought that from the beginning. How likely was it, honestly, that we would arrive at this place only hours behind him? He waited till he knew we were on his tail before he came in here."

"But why?" Mena shoved a chair with two smashed legs against the box and pushed it into place.

Karliah straightened her back and looked at the other two and there were twenty five years of sorrow in her eyes. "Because he doesn't want to get away."

Brynjolf shook his head. "That doesn't make any sense, lass."

Karliah pointed to the boxes. "Let's get onto the far side of the wall and I'll try to explain."

It took another ten minutes to raise the makeshift scaffolding to a height where they could climb to the top of the wall, and then drop as silently as possible onto the broken rubble below. A stone moved under Brynjolf's foot as he landed with a sharp clack and all three of them froze, waiting for Falmer arrows to come searing out of the air, but there was no movement, perhaps the Falmer were used to the creaks and groans of the broken vaults. Karliah beckoned the other two into the shadowed corner of the room.

When she spoke she appeared to be choosing her words carefully. "Mercer wasn't always as he is now. You remember him when he first came to the Guild, Bryn. He was always cagey about his family - we reckoned Breton stock but Skyrim bred, his voice was one you could have heard anywhere from Markarth to Winterhold. Gallus always thought he had money behind him even then, he wasn't one of the ragged lads that came in through the market. Maybe the youngest son of a rich merchant family, maybe even black barred nobility. We just never knew. And he didn't tell us."

Brynjolf nodded. "I remember, lass. But from the first days he took to everything he was taught as if born to it. Only thing that I could ever beat him on was lockpicking, and I used to tell him that it was just as well that I could beat him on that, otherwise I would have hated his guts." His voice was almost wistful. "He laughed. It seems like we all laughed a lot more, back then."

Karliah gave a grim smile. "We did. And I remember that Mercer too. Sarcastic and quick tongued, but a born thief. He became a Nightingale before I did - the original trinity was Gallus, Marvess and Mercer."

That startled Brynjolf. "Old Marvess was a Nightingale? I'd never have dreamed...I just remember him snoozing in a corner of the Flagon over a flagon of ale and occasionally waking up when he was sober enough to give terrifying lessons on knife throwing. He notched my ear once on one of his demonstrations."

Karliah gave a half smile. "Yes. Marvess was the Trickster Nightingale who held the half moon place before I did. When he died, Mercer and Gallus initiated me, and for years we were the famous team that never had a failure."

"I'll still never understand why Mercer threw that all away, lass."

Karliah raised her eyebrows. "Can't you? Because I can. Mercer's flaws, right from the beginning, were greed and ambition. No matter what he achieved, he wanted more of it. I don't just mean money - we know he was stealing from us, but it was more than that. He had to be the best at everything, the one who couldn't be beaten. He had to have the best of everything - he was always the one who would jeopardise a job to get just one more trinket when our bags were already full to bursting. You'll probably never realise how much he hated you for being better at lockpicking than he was. Night after night he'd spend practicing it after you went to bed, he could never admit that all the practice in the world would not give him the skill that was inborn in your fingers."

Mena spoke for the first time. "But it's a big step from greed and ambition to the utter betrayal he finally committed. What drove him to do it?"

Karliah turned to Mena. "If Mercer had never become a Nightingale then a lot of what followed would never have happened. You could say that was Gallus's fault for talking Marvess into initiating Mercer as the third Nightingale. But Gallus thought that Mercer's drive to excel could be harnessed and channelled by giving him something so much greater to turn his talents to. He was wrong, bitterly wrong. What it did was show Mercer just how tiny he was in comparison to what he could be, once he understood about the Skeleton Key and what it could unlock within him. And that knowledge drove him mad."

Brynjolf raised his eyebrows. "You sound almost sorry for him, lass. Even after everything he did? His murder of Gallus? What he did to the Guild? What he did to you?"

"Maybe I am sorry for him." Karliah sounded thoughtful. "Sorry for the man he was, the man who was shield brother and right hand to both Gallus and myself for so long. Sorry that any of this ever had to happen. But not sorry for who he is now - except in as much as I know that he has had no joy in what he did. Twenty five years of living a lie, living with the guilt of murder and black betrayal, living with the fear that he would be discovered if I ever came to light again. Living with himself which must have become hardest of all. That's why I say he wants us to catch him up. Because he wants us to know that he's beaten us. And that we can never follow him again."

"And perhaps," Mena said softly, "the tiny part of him that remains a Nightingale wants oblivion and an ending, and not to win. And that tiny voice within is driving him beyond madness now."

Neither Brynjolf nor Karliah had expected anything like that from Mena and both stared at her. She met their stares. "What? Did you expect me to hate him for knifing me? I hate what he did. But I can pity what he has become. That won't stop me from killing him." Her face was in shadow and they could not see her expression. "I named myself the Black Nightingale to the Dark Lady, and I knew what I did when I gave myself that name. I am the dagger in her hand and the agent of her vengeance. I will see Mercer dead, as I would see any other rabid animal dead before it could kill again."

There was a long silence between them. Brynjolf broke it. "We'd better get moving. Follow the wall as Mercer did. With any luck the Falmer won't spot what we're doing."

Karliah nodded. "There's two dead Falmer in the middle, you can see them from here, and I don't think Mercer killed them. Those runnels in the floor - there' s spinning blade traps there. If we'd gone running up the centre of the room, they'd have got us. Perhaps the fact that we couldn't open the gate and give chase to Mercer has even been lucky in the long run."

"Aye lass. Well, let's go. Whatever he's got for us in the next room of this maze, we'll be ready for it. I doubt we've seen the last of his tricks here."


	25. Chapter 25

_**Author's note. Brynjolf would like to apologise to all Monty Python lovers for his comment in this chapter. :)**_

* * *

><p>If the last chamber had seemed to be designed for a dragon to live rather than dwarves, then this one must have been the baby dragon nursery. Fallen rubble was tumbled everywhere in piles and individual blocks like the building bricks of an angry child thrown all over the playroom in disgust when the castle disintegrated. A network of high bridges across the room seemed still to be intact, though the delicate structures appeared to defy all the laws of engineering to even remain where they were.<p>

And the Falmer were everywhere. It seemed like every shadow held its own skulking goblin, most of them armed with crude longbows, but one or two with the twisted staves that denoted shamans.

"There's more of them at ground level than on the bridges," Brynjolf said quietly to the other two as they all crouched in the shadow of a broken door. "We may be better taking the high road rather than the low road across this chamber - if we climb the rubble to the right we can get onto the first bridge from there."

Karliah shook her head. "They've got too many archers. The instant that one of us made enough noise to pinpoint where we are, every arrow in the place would be winging its way to us. Too risky."

"Your choice, lass. But I can't see we're going to be a lot better trying to cross at ground level with these numbers.

And that was the moment when the crash came from the far end of the room. For a terror-stricken moment it seemed that the whole ceiling was coming down; a cloud of white dust obscured half the room and stones ricocheting off other stones added a staccato counterpoint to the thunder. The Falmer in blind panic were scurrying to every exit they could find and Brynjolf dragged the two women away from the door just in time to avoid a head-on collision with one of them. Mena was already darting away towards the right wall and Brynjolf and Karliah swiftly followed her, trusting to the dust and noise to cover their movements.

What they saw at the far end of the room brought them all to a halt. One of the towers had simply collapsed, obscuring the far door. The last tumbling stones rolled down to floor level, and the room was silent. The Falmer had not come back.

Even so, Brynjolf spoke in an undertone. "So this is what we heard. The whole tower collapsed."

Karliah nodded. "It's Mercer. He's trying to block the pursuit."

"Gods above. How did he do that?" Brynjolf was looking at the tower, the dead bodies of two Falmer visible in the rubble.

Karliah shook her head. "Even now, you still haven't realised it, have you? It's the Key. While he has that, nothing is impossible. Nothing. If he could access the full power it unlocks he could tell the sun to stand still in the sky - and it would do so."

"It has such power?"

Karliah nodded. "We simply do not know what it would allow someone to do if they worked out how to use it. Nobody has ever used it in such a manner. We have taken great care that they should not. It has been lost and found before - there are stories from Morrowind that say that the Nerevarine had it in his possession for a while. But for someone who didn't know what power it had - well, it would seem a very good lockpick. An unbreakable lockpick. But no more."

Mena wiped dust from her bowshaft. "How do we know that the Nerevarine didn't use it? After all the stories - defeating Dagoth Ur and destroying the Heart of Lorkhan? Battling Almalexia? Perhaps it was the misuse of the Skeleton Key that gave him the power to do it?"

Karliah seemed doubtful. "It's such ancient history now, I doubt that we'll ever know. Nocturnal certainly never said anything about it having been used before. But she isn't a fountain of information at the best of times."

"You can say that again, lass." Brynjolf looked at the blocked doorway. "Well, one thing's certain - we're not going any further this way. High road it is - there's a door up there in the wall at the end of the second bridge. If we have any luck left to us at all, let's hope we're lucky enough that it leads on to the next room."

The door led to a passage that was littered with traps, all of them visible and easily inactivated with a well placed arrow. Somehow it all seemed too obvious for Mercer, but Karliah seemed to have another theory. "The traps may not have been placed here by Mercer at all." she said, nudging one aside with her foot. "If he went through the lower door before setting off the explosion that brought the tower down, then the traps here may be Falmer manufacture. They're crude and obvious, so I wonder what they were trying to trap."

"Skeevers, from the look of it," Mena said wryly. "Look."

At the end of the passage was a larger room, and there was indeed a skeever's body threaded onto a long narrow piece of metal. The makeshift spit had been set over a fire to roast, but whoever had been responsible for tending dinner had clearly run away with the other Falmer, and so one side of the huge rat was almost uncooked, the other half charred. The scent was less than appetising and Mena wrinkled her nose. "I'd have to be pretty hungry to make a meal out of that. Maybe Falmer have no sense of taste, as well as being blind."

"Tastes a bit like chicken," Karliah said unexpectedly.

Brynjolf raised his eyebrows. "You mean you've eaten skeever, lass?"

She gave him a half grin. "Bryn, I was on the run from Mercer and the guild for twenty five years. When you're hungry enough, you'll try anything. And it's amazing how many things taste like chicken if you're hungry enough."

Mena beckoned to them from the far end of the room. "I think we've got more trouble. What on earth is that?"

The high, narrow room came out onto a balcony. There were still no signs of any Falmer, whatever holes they had scurried away into must have been as far as possible from the fallen rubble in the huge hall they had left behind. But in the centre of the new room stood a dwemer construct unlike any other they had seen in the ruins so far. Over forty foot high, motionless, golden, suspended from a huge metal frame, it dominated the room in menacing immobility

Brynjolf let out a long breath. "Shor's bones, look at that monstrosity."

"Dwemer centurion - very tough and very deadly," Karliah said. "We can sneak around or take it on. Frankly, I'd suggest the former. While we've got the Falmer all running for their lives, the best thing we can do is get across here as fast as possible. We know we must be getting close to Mercer because he brought the tower down in the last room - he wouldn't have bothered to delay us like that if we weren't close on his heels now."

Brynjolf nodded. "I agree. There's a maze of bridges up there, if we stick to the ones nearest to the wall we should stay far enough from the centurion not to set it off."

Mena peered at the far side of the room. "There's giant spiders there too, near the western wall. Stay to the east side and they shouldn't sense us, they're short-range hunters usually."

One pace towards the wall, and this was seen to be a false hope. Whatever had alerted the centurion, their movement or something else, the golden monster took a pace out of its supporting frame and stood rocking as its ruby eyes flared to life. At present it did not seem to be looking at them, but if they moved again the luck could not hold.

"Now what in Oblivion do we do?" Brynjolf hissed under his breath.

Karliah was already fumbling in her pouch. "There's a poison that works on these, but it's hard to get an arrow in a place where it'll work. Mena, smear this on your arrows and aim for the leg and arm joints - there's no soul gem in these to knock loose, only a dynamo core deep in the chest. Bryn, you're going to have to get its attention to give us a clear shot. Go and yell insults at it, and don't get in range of its arms."

Brynjolf grimaced. "So what am I supposed to tell it, lass? That its father was a skeever and its mother smelled of snowberries?"

"If you can't think of anything better." Karliah leapt to a broken strut on the wall and drew back her bowstring. "Go!"

Brynjolf ran along the top of the rubble piles and dropped lightly to the floor. The insults didn't seem to be necessary, before his feet had even touched the floor the centurion had turned towards him and was lumbering in his direction with a frightening speed. He hoisted the largest lump of rubble he could lift, and lobbed it in the direction of the metal giant, the boulder reverberated uselessly off the construct's shoulder but distracted it from the arrow of Karliah's that lodged in a joint of its left arm. Mena's arrow landed less than a handspan from Karliah's and bounced off. He didn't dare look at the two women, but threw himself forward, tucking and rolling under the arm that smashed down less than a foot from his head. The creature turned again as another glass arrow sank into its knee joint. None of them seemed to be having any effect.

Brynjolf lobbed another rock and then ran for a rubble pile. "I can't keep this up forever, lass," he called urgently. "How long does this take to work?" Another crash of the centurion's arm reduced the rubble pile to dust as he leapt off it.

"Not long," Karliah shouted. "Keep it turning!"

He sprinted for the opposite corner, aware of the centurion on his heels, then suddenly dodged and turned back on himself, running back towards the two women. This time as the centurion turned there was a terrible grating noise, and then the monster crashed to its knees as its joints appeared to seize. There was one moment where nothing at all was moving, then it tumbled onto its face and lay motionless.

Brynjolf wiped sweat from his face as Karliah and Mena climbed down to join him. "Close. Too close by half. Karliah, just how do you poison a clockwork?"

She showed him a small vial. "Won't work on the little ones, but those centurions have a system of pipes that keep lubricating fluid running round the body. This is a strong corrosive, you can only use it on glass or ebony tipped arrows, never metal. Get an arrow with this on it deep into the joint and it'll be transported all round the body in the pipes, the joints seize up in the end." She turned to look at Mena. "And you missed both your shots - and I've never seen you do that before. Is that wound in your shoulder giving you trouble?"

Mena nodded. "I can't get full draw on this bow. I think I've split some of the stitches open. If we survive this and make it home alive, Herluin is going to kill me."

Karliah nodded. "Stick to short range targets only, half draw. Spare that shoulder as much as you can. Once we get out of this place we can do something about it, but here we can't get you out of your armour, you'd be a sitting target for the first Falmer archer that got lucky."

"Let alone what Mercer might do," Brynjolf added. "We surely have to be almost to the heart of the ruin now."

"Next room, if Gallus's directions are correct." Karliah said. "He reckoned that this ruin was a mirror image of another one that he and I cleared out many years ago. If so, the next room will hold the statue - but I can't promise. We've been working on guesswork for most of this."

"And," Brynjolf added grimly, "we can be pretty sure there will be some other nasty surprise that Mercer has set up for us. Mena, lass, if you can't use your bow properly stay behind the two of us, and try to set up for a short range shot if you can when his attention is on us."

She nodded, and they picked their way to the far doors. A stray spider fell to one of Karliah's arrows and the other spiders seemed to think that they would wait for easier prey, no more of the eight legged monsters came out of the web-festooned corner.

Brynjolf tested the lock on the doors. "Unlocked already. Are you both ready?"

Mena nodded silently. Karliah's stare was fixed on the doors and she spoke quietly. "As ready as we'll ever be. Open the door, Bryn, and Nocturnal's luck go with us. We'll need it."

He nodded back, took a deep breath, and threw the doors open.


	26. Chapter 26

The Snow Elf statue that dominated the whole room as they crept through the door was so huge that it dwarfed the massive centurion that they had fought. The carven stone face was beautiful, serene and unearthly; if this was truly how the Snow Elves had been then the degree of degradation to which the Falmer had sunk was even more pitiable. The base of the statue rested in a deep pool of clear water, rippling gently with unseen currents deep below the surface. They had come out on a ledge roughly on a level with the statue's eyes - or eye. One of the great gems had already been pried from its socket.

Initially they did not even see Mercer, high on the statue's shoulder and partially obscured by the shadows of the roof, then Karliah pointed. "He's here and he hasn't seen us yet. Brynjolf, watch the door."

Brynjolf had already turned back and was quietly lifting the bar into place. "Aye, lass. Nothing's getting through this after us. Can do without the Falmer adding to this little party."

Karliah nodded. "Mena, climb down that ledge and see if you can..."

And then suddenly Mercer's voice cut through them, resonant and echoing, even amused. "Karliah, when will you learn you can't get the drop on me?"

The shock of the words was followed by a crash even louder and closer than the falling tower had been, as half of the balcony on which the three of them stood simply collapsed. Brynjolf, nearest the door could not initially see the two women in the cloud of stone dust that erupted, but he heard Mena scream and frantically tried to take a pace in her direction, only to be hauled back by Karliah from the edge of what had become a sheer drop.

Through the obscuring dust he could hear Mercer's voice getting closer, and realised that Mena had gone off the edge when the balcony fell. And Mercer seemed to be addressing Mena in that same dry, sarcastic voice that he used to dress down young thieves over the Guildmaster's desk back in the Cistern. But the words were thoughtful, even slightly sad.

"When Brynjolf brought you before me I could feel a sudden shift in the wind. And at that moment, I knew it would end with one of us at the end of a blade."

Mena's voice came, ragged and with a gasp at the end of the words that told Brynjolf that she had been badly hurt in the fall.

"It didn't have to go this way, Mercer."

Mercer laughed, a mirthless sound. "Not the words I expected from you, Philomena Windlady. Oh yes, I know who you are now. Did you think I wouldn't send to Hegathe to find out why a Hammerfell Talon was in Skyrim? They told me all about you in the letter. Your old Guildmaster there was quite unhappy when you upped and left, you know. He'd had a lot of plans for you, and you spoilt them all. He said that he had wanted a hunting hawk but in you he got a bloodhound - once on a trail, nobody got you off it, and it wasn't always the target that he had sent you after." He paused. "Philomena, the last living member of a dead royal house, the queen without a throne that became a thief, the thief who became a hound hunting vengeance. And you turn up in the Riften Thieves Guild. I knew that sooner or later, I would become your target. Did you think I would just sit and wait for that to happen?"

"Give me the Key, Mercer. Even now you can still walk away. Seek the Lady's forgiveness. Traitors have returned to her before now."

"What's Karliah been filling your head with? Tales of thieves with honor? Oaths rife with falsehoods and broken promises? Nocturnal doesn't care about you, the Key or anything having to do with the Guild."

The dust was clearing slightly, he could see Mercer below them and Mena on her knees in the water, one of her feet twisted under her at an unnatural angle that told Brynjolf that her ankle had broken in the fall.

There was pain in Mena's voice, not all of it physical. "Mercer, you who have stood before the Dark Lady, you who named yourself to her as her eyes and ears, you who bore the name of the Shadow Nightingale, even you can't make yourself believe that. She has watched the Guild for a long time. She watches still. Even now."

"Then it appears the shadows shroud more than your presence... they blind your wisdom as well. Our actions have always been one and the same; both of us lie, cheat and steal to further our own end. Have you learned nothing from your time with us?"

Mena said quietly. "The difference is I still have honor."

"It's clear you'll never see the Skeleton Key as I do... as an instrument of limitless potential. Instead you've chosen to fall over your own foolish code."

At the far end of the balcony, Karliah was balancing on some rubble. Her voice came, ragged and furious.

"You were a Nightingale, Mercer Frey! All that you did to me falls to nothing before your betrayal of what you swore to protect."

Mercer glanced up. "Oh, Karliah. Grow up." A smile crossed his face. "Let's keep you occupied, shall we? I'll deal with you after I rid myself of your irksome companions. In the meantime, perhaps you and Brynjolf should get better acquainted."

And suddenly Brynjolf saw Karliah draw her blades. For a second he thought that the Dark Elf was simply going to leap into the water, and then in utter disbelief he saw her come at him. He barely got his own blades up in time to meet her, as she struck at him again and again. "Lass, what in Oblivion are you doing?" he managed to say through gritted teeth as he blocked a blow.

Karliah's face was twisted fury. "This isn't me." A dagger thrust scraped off his sleeve as he span away. "This is Mercer. He's taken my power, the power of the Trickster Nightingale, the Agent of Subterfuge, and turned it back on me."

Brynjolf backed away slightly, catching blow after blow. Echoing in his ears was his conversation with Mercer, all those weeks ago when Mercer had first told him that he had tracked down Karliah.

_"Oh come on, Bryn. Use your brains. Where did everything start to go wrong for us?"_

_"When she killed Gallus."_

_"Exactly. Gallus's murder was the beginning of the end for the Guild. And Karliah is in the place where she killed him. Snow Veil Sanctum, north of Windhelm"_

_Brynjolf shook his head. "Well, you aren't going after her alone. This one I'm coming with you. We've all got a score to settle there"_

_Mercer laid a hand on his arm. "Bryn, don't think I don't appreciate it. And face to face, sword and shield, you might be one of the few people in the Guild who would actually be Karliah's match. But this won't be face to face."_

His thought as he blocked another flurry of blows was that Mercer had given him too much credit. Karliah was insanely fast, and the only thing that had stopped her blows landing was his own memory of sparring with her all those years ago. She had been his main teacher in his early days with the Guild, both for archery and for bladework, and had been a hard taskmistress in both. But what he was realising as he caught her next blow and threw it aside was that while she was unable to stop herself attacking him, she had some control over what strokes she used. This was a formal drill sequence, one of the advanced exercises she had taught him, and while that wouldn't save him if even one of her thrusts found its mark it at least gave him some ability to predict her actions and counter them. Mercer either hadn't realised what she was doing, or considered that what they were doing was more than enough to stop them interfering with whatever he was going to do.

Some of what Mercer was saying to Mena down below was inaudible but he could hear Mercer laugh and realised Mena must have thrown her belt dagger at him and missed badly. "Dear dear. Is that the best you can do?"

Mena's anger hissed through her teeth. "Better kill me this time, Mercer. Because if I live, I'll hunt you. Whatever you think, I didn't come to Skyrim for that. I had another target. But I am the Black Nightingale now. Her dagger, her vengeance"

Mercer seemed surprised at that, and Brynjolf heard him laugh again as he quoted the rhyme. "But when treachery comes to the Queen of the Night, from her hands and her will then the Black takes her flight. When all appears lost save the Lady's own grace, then remind her the moon bears another dark face." He paused. "It won't save you. But I can appreciate the move in the game. I could admire you, you know. I can see so much of myself in you. Your refusal to play by the rules - any rules - is something that Gallus would have liked. But all luck runs out in the end."

Karliah hissed at that, and for the first time in the fight, her attention was off Brynjolf. In that second he sprang, striking her blade backhanded with a twist that knocked the blade out of her hand and shoulder charging her with a force that sent her lighter frame tumbling to the floor. He yanked her arm up behind her and held her down with a knee in the small of her back.

Her voice whispered up to him. "Don't let go of me, Bryn. Can he see us from here?"

"I don't think so, lass. The angle's wrong. But I can't see him or Mena"

"Does she still have her bow?"

"I think so, but it's no use to her, she can't get a decent draw on it."

Mercer suddenly came back into his field of vision, moving back up the statue, presumably to claim the one remaining gemstone eye. His voice drifted back towards them. "I don't need to put a blade in you. You've lost, Black Nightingale. But I'll do this much for you. When I leave here, I'll bring the roof down. This will make a better tomb than Snow Veil Sanctum for the lost queen and the last Nightingales." There was something in his voice that could almost have been sadness. "If nothing else, they'll sing of you. The story will be told. It didn't need to end this way - but you forced this ending."

He was reaching for the gem when Mena's voice came, strong and full of grief. But it was not addressed to Mercer, or even to Brynjolf - it might even have been a prayer.

"Dark Father, the Lady has claimed me, and I go willing. But, Lord of Vengeance, be with me one last time!"

She had dragged herself forward on her knees and Brynjolf could at last see her again. Blood was trickling down her cheek fron a deep gash in her scalp, and her bow was in her hands. He had a split second where he realised what she was doing. Her stance was reversed, the bow instead of being in her left hand was in her right, braced against her body with her elbow grinding into her side to strengthen the injured shoulder, and she had drawn back the string with her left hand, an ebony arrow aimed high.

_She can't possibly make that shot. Not with her left arm, not on her knees, not at that distance. She's shaking with weakness, her ankle's broken. I don't know how she's even upright still._

And then, suddenly, he saw for himself what the debtors in Riften had seen all that time ago when he sent her to claim the unpaid debts and wondered just how she had frightened them so badly. In some ways she hadn't altered at all. But it was like a great darkness was cloaking her, a shadow that owed nothing to the direction of any light. The reflections from the water around her dimmed and faded, her golden hair seemed ashen, her skin greyed. He saw her draw in the archer's breath and let it out, that breath that steadies the hand and reduces the world to one arrow and one target.

The arrow sang from the bowstring with a single harpnote and buried itself in Mercer's throat. And, soundless, the former Nightingale and former Guildmaster tumbled from the statue's shoulder, dead before his body hit the water.


	27. Chapter 27

_**I'm back! Apologies for the long delay in updating, and more apologies to those of you that I owe reviews to, I'm getting round to them ASAP.**_

* * *

><p>"For the love of the Lady, get Mena!" Karliah struggled to her feet and looked from side to side, trying to find a part of the balcony from which it was safe to drop down into the seething water.<p>

Brynjolf was already balanced precariously on the edge of the ruined balcony, trying to judge the drop. The water was rising very fast, and in the end he simply leapt, trusting to his memory and his light feet to land safely. The impact of the fall knocked the breath out of him and he gasped for air, then struggled back to his feet, waist deep, searching frantically for Mena. At first he could see no sign of her, and then a glimpse of the drowned-gold of her hair caught his eye and he was plunging deeper into the water to catch her under the arms and drag her head up. She wasn't breathing. He felt for the pulse under her jaw and felt it flutter under his fingers like the wings of a tiny bird. With that, memories came back to him of an incident at the Thieves Guild long ago where a young thief had tried to drown himself in the Cistern, and with a recollection of Phylbert's matter of fact actions that night in his mind he turned Mena sharply away from him, bent her forward and caught her two sharp blows in the centre of her back.

_Breathe, Mena, damn you. Breathe for me, for Karliah, for Kematu, for everyone in the Guild who's learned to love you, and even now I don't think you realise just how many people that is. But for the Lady's sake, breathe, because I can't lose you twice._

For a heart stopping minute he thought it wasn't going to work, then he felt her cough weakly and take a gasping breath, then another. He pulled her against him and looked around for Karliah, the water now up to his chest. "Have you found Mercer's body?"

"I have." Karliah's shout came over the roar of the waters and he could barely hear her next sentence. "I've got the Key! But I can't find the gemstone he took from the statue!"

"Bugger the gems! As far as I'm concerned they can lie drowned in here till the World Eater comes. But we're not going to drown in here too. How in Oblivion do we get out?"

He couldn't hear her reply, but she pointed and he saw it. High above the head of the statue was a tunnel in the rock wall. She took a few floundering strokes through the deepening water to get close to him, and repeated her words. "If this water doesn't stop rising, we can get out that way. Float up to it, trying to stay close to the wall. Can you swim, Bryn?"

"Well enough for this, lass. Can you?"

"Badly. But I'll manage."

As the water rose to the point where his feet could no longer touch the floor he let himself drift across to the wall, one arm locked under Mena's shoulders to keep her head above water, she was still breathing in rough, slow gasps but wasn't responding to his voice. As the opening approached he watched Karliah swim clumsily across the ledge and vanish, and then he drifted over the lip of rock and discovered why she'd vanished so fast. WIth this as the only outlet from the flooding chamber for the roiling waters, the pressure was such that the tunnel had become a raging torrent, sweeping them relentlessly along. They were buffeted and bruised, thrown against rocks as the tunnel curved and only the Nightingale armour saved them from far worse than bruises. It felt like the tunnel was unending, and then suddenly there was dim light, and the floods spat them out on a frosty hillside, gasping.

He looked around, trying to work out where they were. They had clearly come out a long way from the main entrance to Irtngthand, and this part of Skyrim was not well known to him. The rising moon struck cold glitter from the frost burnt grass and the hillside sloped down into a valley, the water splashing along a stream bed that had probably been dry for decades before the floodwaters from the ruin broke out, plunging down the hillside to a half frozen lake at the bottom.

Karliah was also casting about and seemed to have a clearer idea of where they were. "We've come out of Bronze Water Cave. I hid here once when the Guild were still hunting me."

She looked down the hill. "We've got to find somewhere to get dry and to take care of Mena. If my memory serves me correctly, there's a road running down this valley that joins the main road to the south where it turns towards Windhelm, and there's a hut near the road. Charcoal burners use it now and again but it's generally been empty when I've come this way. At least it's no more than a mile and a half and that all downhill. Has Mena spoken at all?"

"No, lass." He bent down to pick Mena up again. "I can carry her that far anyway."

A mile and a half was a pleasant walk on a summer's day. On a winter night with a heavy burden, cold, wet and tired, it felt more than five miles. But at last the shack loomed into sight with its shutters closed and Karliah slipped ahead of Brynjolf to check the door. It was locked, and she fiddled with picks for a minute before it swung open to a deeper blackness within, clearly nobody was currently in occupation.

A dim flicker from a tinderbox became a soft glow as Karliah lit a rushlight that had been left on the crude shelf and Brynjolf carried Mena to the bedstead, laying her down on the piled, dusty hides that formed a mattress. There was a firepit in the centre of the room still laid and ready for the return of the usual occupants. Karliah looked at Brynjolf questioningly. "Shall we risk a fire? Very few people come this way other than the Thalmor patrols, and they tend to stay on the main road, they don't come this far out. This deep in the Pale the Thalmor tend to have little ...accidents if they get off the main road."

"I think we can risk it, lass. The shutters are closed and the wood seems dry, so there won't be much smoke. We're more at risk from freezing rather than discovery." He unbuckled his own armour and laid it against the wall, then turned to ease Mena out of her breastplate and gloves. "Mena, lass, we're safe. We're out." She did not respond and he chafed her hands between his, they were ice cold.

Karliah had also divested herself of her Nightingale armour and the firepit was now ablaze, she fed it some small chunks of wood and poured the remainder of the contents of of her waterskin into the firepot that hung on the tripod above it. Brynjolf called Mena's name once more and then lightly slapped her on both cheeks. She muttered something incomprehensible and her head tossed from side to side.

Karliah shook her head. "Leave it for the moment, Bryn, this isn't just her injuries."

"What do you mean, lass?"

"I mean that we all saw what she did. She deliberately called on Sithis to aid her, and the Dark Father entered her. There is always, always a price to pay for allowing any immortal - Aedra, Daedra or dark Lord of the Void - to ride a mortal; it takes all your strength and more. I don't think that what she did was what she described to Nocturnal as the "darkness guiding her hand." She deliberately offered all that she had, all that she was, to see Mercer dead, and she achieved it. And when she achieved it - there was nothing left."

"Did she know that would happen?"

"I have no idea." Karliah looked along the boxes on the shelf, opened a couple and tipped some herbs into the water. "But I know this much. In the despair that causes you to make such an offer to one such as Sithis, you are rarely expecting - or intending - to survive it."

He unlaced and eased off Mena's boots and black leg armour, hissing at the broken ankle that hung useless. "She isn't going to be walking anywhere on that any time soon. We're going to have to try to splint it." He paused and looked at Karliah. "If Sithis did this to her, is there any way we could call on Nocturnal to heal it?"

"Not to my knowledge. It just doesn't work like that. We aren't going to have access to any of Nocturnal's power until the Key is back in the Twilight Sepulcher."

Brynjolf laid a bedraggled wolf fur over Mena and shook his head. "What about the Key itself?"

"You mean, could we use the Key to heal her? Mercer probably could have done. But even if we dared try, I have simply no idea what he did to open the powers the Key gave him. It must have taken him years of study to work it out."

She took the Key out of her belt pouch and showed it to him. "You see? It looks like an ordinary lockpick - other than what it's made of, gold and bone. The bone is supposed to be dragonbone. Pretty, strange, and powerless. Powerless unless someone studies how to misuse it."

Brynjolf nodded. "Put it away again, lass. We'll have to think of something else then." He paused. "Did you say Thalmor patrols go along the main road?"

"Yes. Even the Stormcloaks won't risk attacking them on the Great Highway." She paused, and saw his face. "Bryn, just what are you thinking of doing?"

He was already pulling his discarded armour back on. "Keep the fire burning, lass, and look after Mena. I hopefully won't be long." The door swung open with a gust of bitter wind and then closed again as his black figure slipped soundlessly out into the night.

It was the better part of two hours before he came back, and when he came back it was not alone. The struggling figure of a Thalmor wizard, bound, gagged and blindfolded came over the threshold before him with Brynjolf's dagger at the back of his neck, and Brynjolf kicked the door closed behind him. Karliah's mouth hung open. Brynjolf dropped her the ghost of a wink, and then spoke to the wizard in a deliberately exaggerated Pale accent. "Now, laddie. Ye're probably well aware that we dinnae like you much round here. And strange as it may seem to ye, this was actually a lucky day." The accent dropped and he spoke in his normal voice. "Because, lad, I'm not a Stormcloak. And I want your services, not your hide to nail on the Windhelm gate. So if I remove your gag, are we going to have a civilised conversation? If so, nod your head. Otherwise, I can just drop you off with the nearest bunch of Stormcloaks and go find another more lucky Thalmor wizard. Your choice."

The High Elf's frantic nod would have impaled him on Brynjolf's dagger if Brynjolf had not swiftly pulled his hand back. Brynjolf's voice purred in his ear. "Clever lad." The dagger sliced through the gag and the Elf spat the remains of the wadded cloth out of his mouth.

The Thalmor's first words were shaky. "You're Dark Brotherhood, aren't you?"

"Sadly no. Might even be better for you if we were. Dark Brotherhood aren't generally much into torture if they haven't been paid well for it." The High Elf went even paler, if such a thing was possible. "But let's not worry about that, lad. As you can see, I haven't removed your blindfold and I don't intend to. I discovered thanks to another friend of mine that you Thalmor are perfectly capable of healing magic without needing to see the person you heal - and that's lucky for you as well. Because it means you can do what I need, and since you haven't seen any of us, I can return you to the road, you can get your bonds off and find your friends, and if you're sensible you can pretend none of this ever happened. You are going to be sensible, aren't you?"

The words were level and unemotional, and somehow held a clear image of the probable result if the Thalmor chose not to be sensible. The wizard gulped. "You will have to explain to me what the injuries are, and allow me to lay hands on my patient. Is that all right?"

"Certainly." Brynjolf cut the bonds on the wizard's wrists and led him to the bed. "This is your patient. She is unconscious, she has lost a lot of blood from a wound in her shoulder which is unhealed from over a sevenday ago." He guided the Elf's hand over Mena's shoulder. "Her right ankle is broken. What can you do?"

A shimmer of blue magic surrounded the Thalmor's hands as he moved them over Mena's body. "The wound and the ankle I can heal. But there is more here - a darkness within. I don't want to know who she is. But what did she do?"

Karliah spoke for the first time. "She opened herself to the Lord of Vengeance."

"Sithis." The Elf shook his head. "I'll do what I can - but this is beyond my skills." The fear had gone from his voice, replaced by what could only be called a professional curiosity. "I have seen Daedra worshippers taken up and tossed aside by their gods, and they are similar to this in a way. But she has looked into the Void, and the Void has looked back, and that is a darkness that it is hard to find a way back from."

His hands rested on her broken ankle, and he could see the blue glow spread out to cover it, the misshapen limb straightening and smoothing under his touch. The wizard spoke over his shoulder. "If you have any of these herbs - mountain flower, snowberry, thistle, - boil water and start a tisane. It may not help, but she has little to lose."

Brynjolf got to his feet. "I'll go outside and look - most of those grow wild near here. The other lady here will watch you so don't think of making a run for it."

The High Elf shook his head. "I have no plans to do anything so stupid."

"Do you have a name?"

"Ondolemar."

Karliah looked startled. "You're a continent away from your station, Thalmor. Are you not stationed in Markarth?"

"And you are far from Red Mountain, lady. I hear the Dunmer accents in your voice."

A cry suddenly echoed high above the little house, and involuntarily they all ducked. Brynjolf cursed. "Dragon. You two stay here. I'll get the herbs and see what it's going. Hopefully it's too dark out there for this house to be a target for it."

The door opened and closed, and he was gone.


	28. Chapter 28

It wasn't a dragon.

It was three dragons. Swooping and drifting on the night air above the frozen landscape below, in a strange aerial dance where over and over it seemed like one was about to collide with the other two, then a wing would flick up or a tail tip would drop and the collision would be averted. The great bronze soared high over the much smaller green, the third dragon was a strange pale gold that almost appeared silver, but the moonlight reflections off the scales gleamed yellow not white. And over and over they cried to each other in voices that held all the grief and the fire in the world

Hard to believe they were just beasts. There were words there in the cries, words of no language that he had ever heard but words none the less. They seemed to be paying no attention to him at all, and as he cautiously gathered the frosted herbs and berries with one eye on the sky, he could see that they were drifting further and further to the west as the breeze took them, the cries - or songs - getting fainter.

And then they were gone, and midnight's moons sailed alone in the spangled sky.

Coming to himself again with a start he pushed the door of the shack open, a bundle of frozen foliage in his hand. Karliah's head turned as he entered, relief in her gaze. Ondolemar seemed to be in some sort of trance, swaying slightly. Mena was lying with her eyes closed still but murmuring something under her breath.

"She hasn't come round," Karliah explained. "But she became restless when the dragons were calling, she was talking in her sleep and we couldn't make out what she was saying. It was like she was trying to call out to them. Ondolemar thought that her words sounded like the dragon tongue but it was incoherent, none of it was clear."

The Thalmor raised a hand as if to try to remove his blindfold, then recollected himself and dropped the hand to his lap again. "The dragons speak to each other, but I have never known a mortal who spoke Draconic, more than a few words. I studied the language for two centuries, and my understanding of it is very poor."

"Could you make out what the dragons were saying?"

The High Elf shook his head. "To some extent. It sounded like ritual. I caught rough phrases - "daughter of air, take the skies again, child of fire, come forth from the darkness". I wouldn't swear to it. There is no phrase in the language that cannot be translated a dozen ways. If I was guessing I would have said they were hunting for another of their kind, a lost or hurt dragon that they hoped would hear their voices. But it is only a guess."

Brynjolf shredded the leaves and berries into the boiling water. The tea that was brewing was already an unpleasant shade of murky green and the smell did not improve with the addition. He covered the pot and came over to look at Mena. Her colour was better, the ankle lay straight and whole on the dusty furs and as he turned her slightly it was clear that the gash in her shoulder was now no more than a faded red line, as if the wound was months healed rather than inflicted a sevenday ago. She muttered something and plucked fretfully at the hides with her fingers.

Ondolemar struggled to his feet and his voice was tired. "I have done all that I can do. She will sleep now and wake normally, but she had travelled deep into the Void and it took all the power I have to call her back. Even now, her spirit could still be drawn back. You must be the ones to bind her to this earth now, so that she is not tempted to fade again."

Brynjolf nodded, realised that the Thalmor could not see him, and cleared his throat. "Our thanks. I shall as we agreed return you to the road about a mile from your companions camp, your hands bound loosely so that you can free yourself. We will not hinder you, you will not attempt to find us again. Is that well with you?"

"It is well." The High Elf flinched slightly as Brynjolf took hold of his arm but gave no resistance as he was led towards the door. He did not speak again until they paused near the road. "You do realise you have left me with questions in my mind now for the rest of my life? Oh don't fear, I shall keep my bargain, I have no wish to have you come hunting me. But I shall wonder."

Brynjolf lightly wrapped a cord between Ondelemar's hands, loose looped around both wrists. "Thank you - for her sake and for mine. I would offer you the blessing of Talos, but you would probably take that as an insult."

"I will accept the good wishes, Northman, and remember that the blessing is not made less by your mistaken beliefs. Of course, if we meet again face to face at a Shrine of Talos then my actions will be different, and you would expect no less."

Brynjolf laughed. "Talos guide you then, Elf. The road is beneath your feet. Give me a slow count of thirty and then free your wrists and eyes. Your companions are camped not a mile to the west of here."

He did not wait to see if his instructions were followed but faded into the bushes on light feet and passed away as swiftly and silently as he could, deliberately taking a wide path away at an oblique angle to the cottage, then slipping back as soon as he was certain he was not being followed. As he opened the door Karliah turned with her weapons drawn and then relaxed again. Mena raised her head from the pillow with her eyes unfocused. "Bryn?"

"I'm here, lass." He sat down on the edge of the bed and gathered her into his arms, cradling her against his shoulder.

"Did we do it?"

"We did. You did. Mercer lies dead with your arrow in his throat, we have the Skeleton Key and we are free from the ruins. And you gave us some nasty moments before you came round." He took the cup that Karliah handed him and held it to her lips. "Now drink this. I know it smells awful, but you're going to drink it anyway."

A ghost of her former smile crossed her face. "And if I refuse?"

He chuckled. "Then Karliah will hold your arms, I will pinch your nose, and we'll pour it down your throat anyway. Highly undignified, lass. I wouldn't recommend it."

She wrinkled her nose and then choked down the bitter brew with a shudder. He wiped her face with a cloth and helped her to sit up, supported by the wall. She looked between Brynjolf and Karliah; there was something still odd about her gaze but she was at least seeing them. "So, what now?"

"We take the Key back to the Sepulchure." Karliah shivered. "And that means the Pilgrims Path. It was never intended to be trodden by Nightingales, only by outsiders who wished to speak to Nocturnal and it was deliberately made difficult - tricks and traps. I don't know a quarter of them. And it's guarded by former Nightingales."

"Former Nightingales?"

"Oh yes." Karliah's face was bleak. "Remember the oath you swore? You and I and Brynjolf will all take our turn there eventually, as did everyone who went before us."

She seemed disinclined to answer further and Brynjolf, after giving her a long look turned back to Mena. "We'll stay here till dawn, lass, then try to get a wagon ride in the right direction. Karliah, just where do we have to go?"

"Falkreath Hold." Karliah seemed to be staring into the distance and have only half her attention on them. "It's near the Hold's western borders, but it's well hidden and quite remote. If we can get a wagon to the Hold then it's half a day's walk from there, no more."

"Or we could steal horses again?"

"Yes, Mena, that really worked well last time. Do you think you're honestly in a state to get bucked off yet another horse?"

"Maybe not." She smiled wryly. "Perhaps the wagon does make more sense."

"Did you get rid of Ondolemar safely?" Karliah asked.

"Left him by the road, lass. I don't think he's fool enough to try to come and follow us."

"No, he was never a fool." The Dark Elf studied her hands. "I was worried that he would actually recognise my voice - we had dealings, many years ago."

"Dealings?"

She laughed, though there was little amusement in it. "Our sort of dealings, Bryn. He had something a client of ours wanted. I stole it, passed it to Mercer who passed it to the client. Then we discovered that the thing was actually cursed, and it caused all sorts of problems for the client. In the mean time, Ondolemar had found who had it - and he employed us to steal it back. So we got paid twice for the same job, and I never knew whether he realised. Good times."

Brynjolf laughed as well. "The best sort of job, lass."

Karliah's face was wistful. "Anyway, that's enough of the memories. Mena, try getting up and walking on that ankle, now it's healed."

Mena cautiously sat up and eased herself to her feet. She swayed slightly and would have fallen if Brynjolf's hand had not been under her elbow. Her first steps were unsteady but but the time she had walked the length of the cabin and back she seemed to be moving almost normally. "I can walk on it, as long as I don't have to go fast."

Dawn was breaking as they made their way back towards the road. No Thalmor patrols were in sight, and the first wagon they stopped found space for them amongst the hide bales in the wagon bed in return for a few septims. Mena slept again despite the cold, leaning against Brynjolf, lulled by the rocking wheels. Karliah leaned over to murmur in Brynjolf's ear. "There's something else you need to know about the Sepulchre. But I can't possibly tell you here. After Falkreath we'll get out of the town and then I'll explain."

"More bad news, lass?"

"Well - you can call it that. You'll see."

He studied her face but she had turned away from him again and was staring at the road, her expression unreadable, other than sadness. Sadness and...fear? Karliah was never afraid - or she never showed it.

The wagon juddered over a rut in the road, and Mena opened her eyes. "Bryn?" Her voice was faint, disconnected.

"I'm here lass. You're safe."

Her hand curled into his, like a tired child seeking comfort, and she slept again.


	29. Chapter 29

Brynjolf had fully expected bad news. What he hadn't expected was Karliah to have a meltdown when at last the doorway to the Twilight Sepulchre lay before them.

It appeared a tomb like any other. They had reached it at nightfall the previous evening, and he had agreed with Karliah's suggestion that they make a camp outside a little way away and enter it in the morning. Brynjolf had kindled a small fire and they slept around it, undisturbed except for a wild goat which had taken one look at them and decided to make a run for it rather than risk being their next meal.

Then the following morning they had dowsed the fire and waited for Karliah to tell them what to do. And that was when the Dark Elf had lost it. She sat staring at the embers of the fire, shaking, and responding to questions with monosyllables. Then finally Mena had lost her temper - something Brynjolf had never seen her do before.

"I don't care what you think is in there." She had snatched the Key from Karliah's hand and stood trembling with anger. "This is going to have an ending, or all this has been for nothing. This can't be a deathtrap, or pilgrims would never reach Nocturnal. If you aren't going to bloody well go in there, Karliah, then I am. Alone if I have to." She spun on her heel and disappeared into the trees in the direction of the tomb.

Brynjolf made a move to follow her, then turned back and slapped Karliah's face hard. The blow had the desired effect, Karliah's hysteria became anger and she swung a blow back which he caught. "Karliah, you can do what you like when this is over. But are you really going to let her go down there alone?"

The Dark Elf got to her feet and shook her head. "The problem is that...he's there."

"Who's there?"

"Gallus."

Brynjolf stared at her. "You really meant it then when you said the ghosts of dead Nightingales haunt the place?"

"They don't haunt it. They guard it. But with the Key gone - they start to forget. To fade. Would Gallus even know who I was?" She shivered. "To have him stare at me as though he had never known me..."

Brynjolf shook his head. "Mena isn't going in there alone. Come on. One way or another, you are coming, Karliah, if I have to drag you by the hair."

She almost snarled at him, but she took up her bow and the pair of them ran towards the door.

Mena was nowhere to be seen when they entered - nor were any of the ghost Nightingales. Karliah ran forward, paused and picked up a book lying on the floor.

"What is it, lass?"

"Some sort of journal? Poem? Set of clues?" She read from the book.

_**""Shadows of their former selves, sentinels of the dark. They wander ever more and deal swift death to defilers."**_

_**"Above all they stand, vigilance everlasting. Beholden the murk yet contentious of the glow."**_

_**"Offer what She desires most, but reject the material. For her greatest want is that which cannot be seen, felt or carried."**_

_**"Direct and yet indirect. The path to salvation a route of cunning with fortune betraying the foolish."**_

_**"The journey is complete, the Empress's embrace awaits the fallen. Hesitate not if you wish to gift her your eternal devotion." **_

"Makes no sense, lass."

Karliah nodded. "Mena's ahead of us anyway. Worry about it when we catch up with her." She tossed the book aside and they ran on into the darkness.

Some of the clues became clearer as they ran - ghost Nightingales attacked them and fell to Karliah's bow and Brynjolf's knives, there was evidence that others had been felled by Mena earlier. An area of light and shadow could only be passed by staying in the darkness, and a statue of Nocturnal that confronted them proved to only allow passage in complete dark. Then finally they tumbled down a pit that opened in front of them - only for the wall of the pit to vanish ahead of them. They took two steps forward and stopped dead.

Ahead of them stood Mena, and Nocturnal - not the formless light of Nightingale Hall but a corporeal figure, tall and enigmatic, the pool of the Ebonmere swirling dark below her. The Skeleton Key lay across Mena's outstretched hands and they saw her drop to one knee before the Daedric Lord as she spoke.

"Dark Lady, your traitor lies dead, and your Key is returned to you."

Nocturnal's voice filled the room. "My, my. What do we have here? It's been a number of years since I've set foot on your world. Or perhaps it's been moments. One tends to lose track."

She turned to glance at Karliah, then her gaze returned to Mena. "So... once again the Key has been stolen and a "champion" returns it to the Sepulcher. Now that Ebonmere has been restored, you stand before me awaiting your accolades; a pat on your head... a kiss on your cheek. What you fail to realize is your actions were expected and represent nothing more than the fulfillment of your agreement."

Nocturnal seemed to smile for a moment. "Don't mistake my tone for displeasure, after all, you've obediently performed your duties to the letter. But we both know this has little to do with honor and oaths and loyalty. It's about the reward; the prize. Fear not. You'll have your trinkets, your desire for power, your hunger for wealth. But for you..." She paused. "No, perhaps this is not true for you, Black Nightingale. You are a hunter by nature. Hircine would have valued you had I not claimed you. So instead I give you a choice."

Mena stood silent, waiting. Nocturnal reached a hand out and laid it on Mena's brow, the Redguard woman flinched but did not back away. "Black Nightingale, you fulfilled your oath. You asked nothing of me. So this is your choice. If you wish, you may go free of all bonds, go where you will, and forget. The Black is needed no more. But there is a place free - if you wish to take it. Will you take your freedom, or remain?"

Mena's voice was soft but clear. "Lady, where would I go? I am yours, sworn to you."

"Then, Black Nightingale, step from blackness into the moonlight. Philomena Moons-Dark, become Philomena Crescent-Moon and take the place of the Shadow Nightingale. Be my eyes and my ears on Nirn, little fledgeling. Know that Nocturnal is pleased."

Nocturnal took the Key from Mena's hand. She turned to the other two Nightingales. "You are smiling, Karliah. Does this amuse you?"

Karliah also knelt and Brynjolf followed her. "No, Lady. I was merely thinking that I think of you as a scolding mother continually pushing me harder to be successful; outwardly sounding angry but silently content. I cannot remember you ever saying before that you were pleased."

Nocturnal laughed, a wholly unearthly sound. "Indeed? Well, know that this time I am pleased. Nightingales, I bid you to drink deeply from the Ebonmere. For this is where the Agents of Nocturnal are born. The Oath has been struck, the die has been cast and your fate awaits you in the Evergloam."

She was fading as she spoke, but her last words were almost teasing.

"Farewell, Nightingales. See to it the Key stays this time, won't you?"

And then she was gone. Mena rose stiffly to her feet and would have stumbled had Brynjolf not been there to catch her elbow. She rested her hand on his arm, but her first words were to Karliah. "Karliah...someone wants to talk to you."

As she spoke, a ghostly figure was materialising by her and Brynjolf saw Karliah go pale. Then as the ghost's face became clearer he realised why, and murmured a name."

"Gallus..."

The former Guildmaster glanced his way and smiled, but his words were addressed to the dark elf. "Karliah. Beloved."

Karliah looked almost ready to faint, and her hands reached out hopelessly towards the spirit. "Gallus! I feared I would never see you again. I was afraid you'd become like the others."

Gallus nodded. "If it were not for the actions of the Black Nightingale, your fears would have come true. She honours us all." He looked at Mena. "I have no right to be proud of you, my daughter whom I never knew, and yet I am proud. You are the image of your mother, and you clearly have all her skills and some of my poor abilities. You are magnificent." He glanced at Brynjolf. "Bryn, it's too late for me to play the heavy father, but you know just what you have in her. Treasure it."

Brynjolf nodded, his arm around Mena's shoulders. "I will. Gallus..." his voice trailed off.

Gallus was already fading, but his voice was clear. "I know, Bryn. I know."

Karliah took a pace closer to Gallus. "What will you do now, my love?"

The Guildmaster brushed a ghostly caress over Karliah's empty hands. "Nocturnal calls me to the Evergloam. My contract has been fulfilled." His eyes never left Karliah's; the Dark Elf's tears were falling slowly down her cheeks. "Beloved, you will see me again. This is not the end. When your debt to Nocturnal has been paid, we'll embrace once again."

Karliah nodded and managed a half smile. "Farewell, Gallus. Eyes open... walk with the shadows."

Gallus smiled in return. "Goodbye, Karliah." He glanced once at Brynjolf and Mena. "Lady's Grace go with all of you. We will meet again."

And then the chamber was empty and they stood alone, the dark well of shadows that was the Ebonmere swirling between them. Mena looked at Karliah. "We all have one last thing to do."

Karliah nodded. "Drink deep, Nightingales. This is the source of our power, opened again by the Skeleton Key. Should the Ebonmere be threatened again, this is where we will be called back to in defence of it. Drink deep, and be one with the shadows and with all who came before us."

They dipped their hands into the shadows and drank of the darkness, a strange liquid that had no taste but burned the throat going down. The shadows swirled around them and the light was gone, and yet they were not alone, there were voices in that darkness and laughter, and the brushes of ghostly hands, and a feeling of coming home such as Brynjolf had never known, held in a great communion of lives with so many seeming familiar, people that he had known and could not name.

And then suddenly it was gone. They stood on the grass outside the Twilight Sepulchre and the ashes of their fire from the night before lay in a burnt circle on the cold ground. There was an unreality to the scene, as though the visions they had passed through were so much more real than anything they had known before, and the grey world of Skyrim was the ghost and the illusion. They stared at each other, none wanting to break the spell of the moment with speech.

Brynjolf suddenly glanced over his shoulder. "Hoofbeats. Someone's coming."

Mena had already turned and there was a half smile on her face. "Kematu. He's coming. But why he's come looking for me now..."

Then a lathered grey horse burst through the trees and reined to a sharp halt before them, and Kematu slid from the saddle to drop to one knee in front of Mena, ignoring the other two Thieves as though they did not exist."

"Windlady." Kematu's voice was raw with dust and he swallowed painfully, but his face was ablaze with triumph. "Windlady Philomena, we have her."

Mena's face was disbelieving. "In truth?"

Kematu nodded. "Windlady, I have ridden two days and two nights to reach you here. The traitress Iman is in our hands at last. I have come to bring you to Whiterun, to deal justice to her."


	30. Chapter 30

_**They shaved her hair.**_

_**She was torn between Jupiter and Apollo.**_

_**A messenger arrived with a black nightingale.**_

_**I seen her on the stairs and I couldn't help but follow,**_

_**Follow her down past the fountain where they lifted her veil."**_

_**"Changing of the Guard - Bob Dylan"**_

_Author's note - without wanting to give away the plot of the Elder Scrolls Online for anyone who is currently playing through the main story, I will say that the comment about Redguard swordsmen shaving their heads when they have a vow unfulfilled is drawn from conversation with Sai Sahan in that game. It fitted this chapter well, so I borrowed it :) I am going to get this story finished if it kills me - it feels like I've beem writing it forever. I'm amazed anyone is still reading!_

The journey to Whiterun was the fastest that Brynjolf had ever remembered travelling, and yet they were not really covering the land any faster than the earlier journey of necessity from Riften to Irtngthand. Kematu had given Mena the tired grey horse he had ridden on, and vanished for two hours, returning with three more. They were a motley collection and Brynjolf suspected they were army remounts, stolen from one of the nearby farms since they had blurred Imperial brands visible on their flanks. But they covered the ground willingly and now at last the walls of Whiterun were becoming more distinct and journey's end was in sight.

The trip had been light-hearted, with the previously taciturn Kematu showing a very different side to his personality as he joked with Mena, who also had shed her silence and returned the teasing in equal measure. For Brynjolf it was a revelation, a glimpse of the carefree young girl she had once been before her world erupted into tragedy.

It was Kematu who finally filled in many of the gaps in the story that Mena had told all that time ago at the party in Riften, telling of the slow and inevitable build up to the war with the Dominion that had engulfed Hammerfell in flames, of the futile attempts to evacuate the city of Taneth in the knowledge that they did not have the time to do it. He told of the attempts made by himself and his father to persuade the royal family to leave, and then his failed attempt to force Mena to return to the desert when it became clear that her grandparents and uncle could not be talked into the withdrawal.

Mena had a wry smile on her face as she listened. "Honestly, Kematu, did you ever truly think you had a hope of getting me to go?"

Kematu shook his head. "No, little sister. But it would never have stopped me from trying to make you see sense. And yet...I thought so often after that terrible night where I believed you dead with your family that had I the time over again, that I should have drugged you and thrown you over my shoulder rather than let you talk me into the madness that you eventually achieved. But had I done so - so many outcomes might have been different. The war turned on that night, even if we could not see it."

Mena leaned over and tossed a chunk of half rotten wood on their fire embers, they were camped in the lea of a hill with a last ride of five miles to make on the morrow. "You tried every argument. It was not until I finally compelled you to the obedience you had sworn that you gave in. And even then, you went down fighting."

Kematu laughed and reached over for the jug of hot ale nestling in the ashes of the fire. "Philomena, did you ever expect anything else of me?"

He had unwound his burnoose and was bareheaded and Brynjolf noticed something. "You aren't shaving your head any more." The Alik'r's head was now covered in a down of black frizz, touched with grey at the temples. "Every morning on the road to Winterhold, you always did it no matter how cold it was. Now you've stopped?"

Kematu nodded. "Most Redguard swordsmen do shave their heads, for coolness and convenience in a desert climate. But we also do it when we have a vow unfulfilled. For ten years I have had such a vow - to bring Iman to justice, and that vow has been kept." He winked at Mena. "If Redguard women shave their hair it is generally for other reasons."

Mena snorted and threw one of her gloves at him, he deftly fielded it. "Reasons like having a bully of a big brother who will not allow them to do what needs to be done other than in male disguise?"

He laughed out loud. "Little sister, the only thing I ever remember you being vain about was your hair. True, I was not letting you out into a city where Dominion soldiers were raping any woman they could get their filthy hands on, other than in the best disguise I could devise. But also I think it was a dying hope of a last poor argument to talk you out of the madness."

She shook her head at him. "You didn't truly expect it to work, did you?"

He also shook his head. "I expected pretty much what happened. You called me every name under the sun, slapped my face, and then handed me the razor and told me to get on with it. And all the time I was doing it, you were alternating between cursing the Dominion and cursing me. I wasn't sure which of us you hated more, that night."

Mena's face was unusually sombre. "I hope you don't mean that. Because I have never hated you. And I cannot remember a time where I did not hate them."

He reached across to lay a hand on hers. "No. I do not mean it, little sister."

Brynjolf had also thought of something else. "I thought that your bond with her meant that you could always tell where she was. But you say you thought her dead that night?"

A shadow passed across Kematu's face. "Hard to explain - I truly did not know. She lay so close to death before I got to her. Northman, if you see a hill beacon on a clear night, you can perceive the light for many miles. But the embers of that beacon may be hard to detect at half a mile, and when there is one living coal left under the ash, you may not even know until you blow the ashes away. That is the best way I can think of to explain."

Karliah had just come back to the fire and Brynjolf realised she was in her travelling garb and her horse was saddled. "You're leaving?"

She nodded. "I'm going to ride for Riften. I'll look in on the Guild and tell Vex and Delvin what I can, then I will head for Nightingale Hall, there's things I need to do there. I will see you when you come home." Her gaze swept the three of them. "Kematu, if we do not meet again, clear skies and fair winds to you. Bryn and Mena - eyes front, walk with the shadows. I will see you in Riften."

"Lady's Grace go with you," Mena said quietly and the Dark Elf raised a hand before slipping away into the night.

The following morning they left the Whiterun road, following a track that led into the farmlands that surrounded the city and skirted the walls at a distance. The Western Watchtower was visible at a distance when Kematu finally reined to a halt. "We leave the horses here."

They picketed the horses near a clump of windblasted trees. Kematu led them around a cairn of rocks and then seemed to almost vanish into the ground. Brynjolf followed, to find a long steep tunnel leading down into the earth, there was evidence that it had once been a Goblin hole but the bone charms were dusty and broken, clearly the clan had abandoned this a long time ago. The track widened and suddenly they were in a huge underground room with a smoky fire built against the back wall. It was not as dark as it first seemed, a natural chimney led up to the light where rocks had fallen.

Kematu's men were facing the entrance and two of them were holding a woman between them. Brynjolf vaguely knew her face but could not at first put a name to her, he had seen her on visits to Whiterun; then the name came to him. Saadia. She was Redguard, with dark hair cut in a long bob, and was wearing unremarkable clothes of Skyrim design. He could see no evidence of physical harm on her, and she seemed angry at her captors rather than afraid.

But if he could not quite recognise her, it was clear that she recognised Mena. The colour drained from her face and if the two men had not been holding her she would have fallen as her knees buckled.

"You." The word hissed between her teeth and her gaze was fixed on Mena. "You are dead. You cannot be here."

Mena laughed, a wholly mirthless sound. "Is that what your Dominion masters told you? If so, they lied. I doubt you even believed it yourself. Iman bint Feleri East Wind, High Lady of House Suda, if you had truly believed me dead you would not have looked over your shoulder all these ten years, wondering when retribution would catch you up. You knew who held Kematu's leash, and who would have unleashed him to hunt you."

Saadia-Iman shook and did not answer. Mena stalked towards her. "So, traitress and murderess, you stand facing me, in the flesh this time and not in your nightmares. What do you expect from me?" She circled the woman and her captors, still talking. "Ten years you have seen me in your dreams. Ten years, the dead of Taneth have cried on the Dragon Wind for justice. You were judged by your peers, those that yet lived. What should I now do?"

From behind her, Kematu spoke formally, the laughing big brother nowhere now to be seen. "Windlady, you hold the right of the High Justice over her. What is your order?"

Mena's dagger was in her hand. Brynjolf half opened his mouth as if to speak, then closed it again, biting at his inner lip.

_Mena, Delvin said all along that you killed too easily. And yet if anyone ever had the right to seek the life of this woman, then it is you. But I don't want to see you do this. The Darkness nearly claimed you after Mercer's death, does each death take you a pace closer to the Void? Please..._

His thought trailed off. He did not speak, but for a second Mena glanced at him before turning back to the ashen faced woman before her. At last she spoke, and her voice was quiet, sad.

"I could take your life now, and none here would gainsay me. And it would not be justice. My dagger burns my hand with its desire to take your heart's blood, and I cannot do it." Her eyes never leaving Saadia's face, she cast the dagger onto the floor between them. "Return to Taneth, and face those you betrayed. Hope for the mercy you have not deserved. Know what has risen from the ashes of what you did."

The other woman seemed about to speak and then her knees finally gave way and she crumpled to the floor. At a nod from Kematu, one of the other Alik'r lifted Saadia as though she weighed no more than a sack of grain and slung her over his shoulder. Kematu bowed to Mena. "Windlady, it shall be as you command."

Mena smiled sadly and touched his cheek for a second. "Be well, my brother. When you have taken her back to Taneth, return to your tribe and to your wife and your sons, from whom I have kept you far too long. Should need arise, I will get word to you. This quest is ended, it is time to live again.

He drew her into an embrace for a moment. "Be well, my little sister." He turned to Brynjolf. "Be well, Northman. Take care of her."

"I will, my friend." Brynjolf slipped an arm around Mena's shoulders, and they watched the men walk away up the rocky slope that led out of the cave, until they disappeared from view. He felt Mena's shoulders slump and looked down at her. "Do you think the time will come one day when you might be able to go home? Back to Hammerfell?"

She shook her head. "I doubt it. Too many pages of a book would need to be unwritten. But I found a home here too - the Guild, and you. I won't waste my life with regrets for what might have been."

Her words were interrupted by a roar echoing down the tunnel, and Brynjolf's blades were in his hands, while Mena snatched up her fallen dagger, and reached for her bow. Brynjolf's words trailed over his shoulder as they ran for the cave entrance.

"Is there one bloody place in Skyrim where we aren't going to get interrupted by a bloody dragon?"


End file.
